Auld Lang Syne
by Bangfangs
Summary: "My sister, the stalwart cop and overwhelmingly good person, entered that shipping container with the intent of saving me, and ended up doing so much more. A few weeks ago, she told me she was in love with me; it was only in that dark, narrow passageway that I really even began to process what that really meant." My version of Season 8. Debster-centric.
1. one: Into That Good Night

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Fangtastic  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: .com)

A/N: I will be the first to say that I abhor author's notes, since I generally prefer writing to stand on it's own without explanations, but a short layout of the story ahead seems like a kindness to readers, so here we are. This story is my own version of Season 8, following the events of the television show and calling back to the previous seasons as well. In an attempt to mimic the style of the show, there will be portions of the narrative told in first person from Dexter's point of view, as well as a third person perspective when he is not around to witness certain events. Consider each chapter an episode, and please enjoy. Thank you.

"Into That Good Night"

_They say that everything can change in an instant, and I know that's true. Certainly my life has altered course rather dramatically with the passing of any particular moment. My sister, the stalwart cop and overwhelmingly good person, entered that shipping container with the intent of saving me, and ended up doing so much more. A few weeks ago, she told me she was in love with me; it was only in that dark, narrow passageway that I really even began to process what that really meant. She was willing to kill for me, to give everything to keep me and my secret safe, and somehow, that fact alone has opened my eyes.  
_

* * *

__

I sink down on my ankles, crouching in the dim cargo container as Deb sobs into Laguerta's blazer, watching her fall apart before my very eyes. I've seen her broken like this before, I've held her in my arms as she put the pieces back together. But no amount of emotional super-glue will restore her tonight; she's a different person, a killer now. But not without reason and not without regret. She seems to bleed with it, with loss, and I feel helpless.

The ever-present and logical portion of my brain, the lizard that has mostly arisen from his original primordial ooze, mumbles something in the back of my head about evidence and DNA and crime scene contamination. I didn't put down plastic, I didn't scour and methodically cleanse my kill room; I acted on impulse, my first mistake. Life without a code is not really boding well for either of us at the moment, but already, I'm working on a plan.

That list-making and logistical mental legwork is severely interrupted when Deb suddenly rises, carrying the smaller Captain in her arms like a sleeping child. She motions to me, and I follow her outside. She uses her shoulders to indicate Laguerta's car, and I open the passenger's side door with my gloved hand. She tucks her tenderly into the seat, then disappears back into the container, returning with Maria's gun, which she places in my palm.

"Make it look like she set her car on fire, then ate her gun," she says heavily; it's the first actual words she's spoken, aside from the wail that sounded like "I hate you" or "I had to"; I couldn't decipher which. "And for fuck's sake, make sure we get the gas from somewhere with no cameras."

"She was facing disciplinary action at work; she might even have lost her career, and tha t was everything to her," I say, agreeing with her idea. She's actually pretty good at this. We'll have to use LaGuerta's credit card to buy the gas, but I know the pump on the dock at most marinas doesn't have a surveillance system. I grab my phone and call Maria's; the ringing makes Deb jump about a foot into the air. I reach around her and retrieve the phone from the floorboard of the car, answering it and leaving them both for a few moments.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"Helping the timeline," I explain. "I called her earlier and lured her down here; the GPS for her phone will show she was here. But now she'll get another call from me and leave, going down to the edge of the ocean to take one last look before she...well..." I stick two fingers in my mouth and pretend to pull the trigger; Deb looks like she wants to vomit. So much for trying to work through this with some dark humor.

* * *

Masuka knows that maybe this is a bad move, even though his date is paid for and probably has seen sicker shit in her day. But he still can't help but smile as he puts on the Depends and wraps the handkerchief around his head, completing his Baby New Year's costume and stepping out of the bathroom. It's twenty minutes until the clock strikes midnight, so he has plenty of time to stroll around the party and explain his bad joke to the coworkers whom he knows won't get it.

He figures Quinn will be in that group, so Vince sidles up to him and plasters a shit-eating grin on his face. Joey doesn't even acknowledge the younger man's presence until he claps him on the shoulder; he's half-lit and trying to booze the pants off Angel's sister and Dexter's babysitter, Jamie. Speaking of which, where the fuck are the Morgans? He hasn't seen Debra since before 11, when she disappeared to the perimeter of the party, phone to her ear.

"Have you seen LT or Dex?" he asks, having to shout over the brassy music pounding out a Latin pulse. Quinn spins around in his seat, seeming to regret that quick movement, then takes in Masuka's near-nakedness. "What the actual fuck, Vince?" he demands. "You tryin' to be the ghost of New Year's past or some shit?" He laughs at his own joke, which Jaime ignores.

A few drinks later, Masuka notices that Debra has reappeared, this time with Dexter, who is leading her through the crowd in front of the stage. Seeing them reminds him of his own date, who seems to have vanished as completely as his boss did an hour ago. Maybe the female Morgan gave Savannah a bit of female-to-female advice.

* * *

I wrap Maria's fingers around the trigger and pull, then hastily step back as Deb throws the lighter into the passenger side window. The resulting fireball blows us both back, and I can hear her stumble even as I lose my footing. But she seems to have caught herself and not torn her dress; I can't say the same for my rubber apron. It's fortunate that I have plentiful supply of replacements.

We don't have time to pause and admire our handiwork; next, we take Estrada's body to my boat, and I stuff it into the bait well and leave the freezer running until I can return in the morning to deal with him. We've got barely enough time to get back and make the appearance at Angel's restaurant that will serve as our alibi if we need one.

Deb is unnaturally quiet while we run our errands, only speaking when I ask her a question, and then giving minimal responses. I know she's in some kind of emotional shock, trying to understand what she's done, the choice she's made. Love is certainly a powerful motivator. I think about stopping back at my place and changing into something more party-appropriate than my kill outfit, but the minutes are flying by on my dash.

We get back just before the clock turns, quietly slipping back into the fray. She leads the way, then falters; I pass by her and she reaches out and grasps my upper arm as we glide through the crowd, wolves in the flock. The world looks like a different place; we feel like different people, bound by the act that we have shared responsibility for. I'm used to my own face being a mask, but to see hers in he same mold sets off something deep inside of me. The people sway closer and begin to embrace around us; her hand slips down my arm and she twines her fingers with mine and I pull her away, into the shadows.

She seems limp and lifeless as I turn to face her, flipping my palm so hers is folded into my hand. I reach out and grab her other hand, lacing our fingers, and lower myself so that I am looking directly into her eyes. They look like two white marbles with brown centers, unfocused. She isn't looking through me the way I'm used to her doing, the way she has our whole lives; she isn't seeing me at all. I repeat her name, and her pupils slide to attention, finally fixing me in her gaze.

From the time she was two and I was three, she's been loud and chatty and pestering, or bursting with anger or hatred or terror, her slim frame shaking with the force of how deeply she _feels_. This shell of herself disturbs me beyond words.

I take a glance, and no one is paying us any mind. So I kiss her. I want her to have some kind of reaction, even if she recoils and slams a fist into my jaw, even if she breaks away and runs off with fresh tears. I kiss her with a lifetime of curiosity behind my lips, with the knowledge that she is the only person in the world who does truly love me.

I don't expect the reaction.

I'm nearly knocked flat when she drops my hands and reaches up, almost hugging me for a moment and pulling me closer as she tangles her fingers in my hair and deepens the kiss. I'm even more blown away by my own reaction- something flares to life in my belly, a tiny flicker that bursts into a wildfire and ignites every nerve ending in my skin. Now I find my own fingers trailing through her pin-straight hair, sliding down her back and pulling her even closer.

How many times have I pulled her to my shoulder, soothing a hurt or slight, or a broken heart? How often have I pulled my lips across her forehead, touched her in a million small ways? But this is something new and dangerous, something ground-breaking. I couldn't tell you how she tastes or the texture of her lips, because I am too overwhelmed by the feeling of connection and combustion and the urgent need to meld myself to her. She comes up for air, but doesn't let go of me. She just cocks her head back so she can look me in the eye, and I can see in a heartbeat that she's back, that some of her spark has re-awoken, wandered back from whatever mental hell she banished it to.

It's a fine time for drunken Masuka to wander by, in what appears to be a diaper with a towel on his head. He gives us a glance and smiles into his Pabst, and I wonder what he saw. Deb's eyes track his movement until he's rejoined the crowd, panic flashing out like maritime signals when she flicks them back up to meet mine. I'm not too worried, considering he's nine sheets to the wind- I'm more busy pondering the fact that my first reaction was not to drop my supposed sister, but to _growl_, an action I only hastily suppressed.

"Come on," I urge her, taking her hand in mine again. We don't have time to explore what just happened, not at this moment, though I do plan on a through investigation once we've finished the evening's work. We make the rounds at the party, she drinks and I demur as the designated driver. I shake Angel's hand and kiss Jaime goodnight on the temple around one, collecting a supposedly drunk sister and my sleeping Harrison from the restaurant's back office. I carry him out to my car with Deb stumbling convincingly behind me. The second I get him secured into his car seat, she deftly opens the door and I know it's been a ruse. She's too sharp to actually imbibe tonight. She checks her reflection in the mirror, and I wonder who she sees looking back at her.

"I'll get him to bed. You go take care of Estrada," she said, reaching into her purse and pulling out some lip balm to replace the layer I wore from her lips an hour ago. It was nearly one, and there was still so much to do.

I didn't know if we were supposed to talk about it, or if she was pretending it didn't happen, if those feelings even applied anymore. I didn't think I had them, but then again, not too long ago, I'd denied having feelings at all. There was no denying this. But I respected her too much to assume anything, so I knew I had to let her lead.

I spared a glance at her at a red light, the fine and noble lines of her beautiful face. She was staring out at the neon-lit street as it rolled by, the colors cycling off her skin. The grief and worry had left her seemingly fragile; she looked too thin. But that same young kid, that rookie cop, had evolved into the steel-spined lieutenant who'd put down her captain to protect the serial killer she loved.

And I had dismissed that love as confusion. Well, there wasn't much of that left after the fires that had forged this fledgling bond, the edges of which we'd yet to define.

We get back to my apartment, and this time, she carries my son up the steel steps and through my doorway, back to his bedroom without a word. I leave my keys in the bowl and go to the fridge, opening her a beer and going back to see if I've got anything to feed her. I'm starving, and I have a feeling she must be too. I'm giving an experimental sniff to a casserole Jaime made a few nights ago when she grabs the belt loop at my hip and spins me, throwing her arms around my neck and pulling me close. I settle my hands awkwardly on her hips and close my eyes, enjoying her closeness on a level that seems primal. It feels good to have full body contact; it soothes something broken deep down inside of me.

"Dex, what the fuck are we going to do?" she asks, her voice low and close to my ear. "The call's going to come any minute- someone's going to see the car."

I slip my hands up her back and press her more tightly to me. "We go in and do our jobs. No one's got any reason to suspect we'd want her dead, not even Matthews. You're a good cop, you've always done everything above the board. And they've never had anything on me aside from Doake's paranoia."

"His well-placed paranoia, apparently." She untangles herself from my arms and goes to the couch. I follow. "What are we doing with Estrada?"

"A trip to the Gulf. Then I'll go down to the cargo container and do one last sweep, though I doubt anyone will look in there. It's usually filled with bananas, anyway," I comment, with the smallest hint of a smile on my face. One echoes across her features. Before we left, I'd diluted the floor of the container with a few gallons of water, thinning the blood out to spread and dry into an ordinary brown stain on the wooden floor. No one would give it a second glance.

"Okay," she says, leaning back and closing her eyes. I hope she sleeps while I'm gone. I rise from the couch, kissing her cheek before I leave. She opens her eyes and watches me leave with an unreadable expression on her face.

I don't bother to do anything special with the man who murdered my mother. He goes in three trash bags and drifts off on the current north, and a strange peace settles over me as I drop the final chunk of him over the railing. It feels like the end of process, the last action in a sequence. I leave his phone in my car, and when I return, I drive out to the airport, and plant it in the bag of a passenger headed to Cuba. There, naturally, it- and Estrada- will vanish into the wind. But it will leave a handy GPS signal along the way.

It's close to four when my own phone buzzes in my pocket. I head back to my apartment to pick up Deb, to take her back to her house to change and freshen up before we go out to the scene. I ask dispatch for directions, since I'm unfamiliar with the marina whose address she's just given me. She cheerfully obliges, and we're off to the scene of LaGuerta's "suicide".


	2. two: Beautifully Broken

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"Beautifully Broken"

_Everything looks different by the light of dawn: the interior of my car, the smoking remains of the Captain's; my own face. I'm a different person by the light of day and in the dark of night. At least, I thought that was what I was back then, just the flesh-puppet called Dexter Morgan, harboring a dark and murderous passenger. But that mask has long ago slipped, and there's something in the stark and sterile remains that linger. Maybe what I see in these thin new rays of sunlight is even more horrifying; maybe it's the truth that Deb knows now. I am a man who has killed and may kill again, and now, she is a woman who has and may do the same.  
_

* * *

__  
The cell phone starts ringing and vibrating at the same time, wandering off the nightstand and dropping to the floor with a dull thump. Joey Quinn wakes at the noise, thrashing around in the tangled sheets and struggling to find the edge of the unfamiliar mattress. In the process, he accidentally smacks Jaime Batista with one of his flailing, naked limbs.

She gasps back to consciousness and throws the top sheet around her body, thoroughly scandalized and in a state of panic. New Year's Eve flashes back to her and she lays back on her pillows with a groan- the come-ons, the drinks, the cute homicide detective- her brother's former partner- the drinks. Oh God, _the drinks_! Then a shared taxi and an abrupt make-out session when he was supposed to just be dropping her at the door. The rapid shedding of his clothing, the breadcrumb-like trail of which she can see leading through her bedroom door, meaning that it had started somewhere in the living room...good grief.

He's busily pulling on his pants and searching for his shirt as he speaks into the phone. He gives her a questioning glance, and she wordlessly points out of her bedroom door, where he shuffles and gives a quiet "Ah-ha" when he locates the missing garment. She scrubs her eyes with her palms, then feels down her body and is surprised to find she's still wearing the panties from last night and one of the tee shirts she typically wears to bed. Maybe there hadn't been that much to drink...

She gets up, glad the shirt is an old one of Angel's and goes to her knees, then drinks a glass of water, swallows an aspirin, and offers a handful to the pathetically thankful Joey, who grabs them and scribbles something on one of her grocery lists before disappearing out the front door.

She walks over to the note, rubbing her temples and is surprised to read his missive:

"Call from dispatch gotta go we didn't have sex thanks for taking care of me I'm a fuckup but I really like you. Joey"

She notes the time on the microwave- 4:47AM- and pads back down the hall, sliding back into bed. She's too hung over to deal with this.

* * *

The loudspeaker at the airport booms overhead as Hannah McKay rolls her large suitcase through the terminal. "Final boarding call for United Airlines Flight 368 to Denver, I repeat, this is your final boarding call."

The pretty blonde, her hair now dyed to the deepest blue-black (with eyebrows to match) gives a smile only she understands and quickens her steps. She can't be late. Fortunately, the airport is mostly deserted, especially this early in the morning. She breezes through security with her fake ID, flying off on a one-way to Colorado.

* * *

After I get the call about LaGuerta's as-yet unidentified car fire down at the marina, I head back to my place and slip in the door as quietly as I can. All the lights are out, but there's a flickering glow coming from Harrison's side of the apartment, and I find Deb curled in the bathtub, three candles lit up on the sink. Her face, neck and knees stick up from the dark, bubbly water, and I don't know if I am supposed to avert my eyes or not. A brother would. Whatever I am now to her... who knows? It might offend her.

I lead with basic facts, cut and dry, hoping they will lull her into a calmer mood than her bath has evidently lead to. Though she's in a position that's purportedly relaxing, she still looks stiff as a board and seems to be aching with anxiety.

"Hey," I greet her, grabbing a towel with my right hand and holding it out alongside my left, offering her a hand up and out of the tub. She stares at my hand, at my body in the doorway, for a long moment, then shakes her head. I shrug and back out of the room, closing the door behind me. It seems like this has gotten a little weirder, and I have no idea why.

I go into my own bathroom and take the quickest shower of my life, in and out in less than two minutes and not bothering to wash my hair. I change into something fast and casual, just a shirt and jeans, and go to check on Deb. Thankfully, she keeps a spare set of clothes in Harrison's dresser for times when she's on this side of town and needs to change, so she's got similar attire on. I don't have time to call Jaime, so I tuck my still-sleepy son back into his car seat for another ride.

"Poor kid," Deb smiles, ruffling Harrison's hair. He gives a giant yawn, then shifts and sucks his thumb a little harder. Jaime insists we need to break him of the habit, but I find it too endearing to correct.

I drive her back over to her place so she can pick up her rental car; the streets are surprisingly quiet, considering the holiday. There are a few drunk drivers on the road, but I avoid them easily enough. I pull up to her bungalow, and she unlocks her door, then pauses, seemingly making some sort of mental decision. Then she turns and kisses my cheek, feather light, before getting out of my car and heading up her walkway without even a glance back to see my reaction.

I touch the place where her lips have brushed my skin with my fingertips, and then my own lips, which, I am surprised to find, have formed a small smile.

My, oh my.

I put the car back in drive and head over to the crime scene. I've got a story line to perpetuate.

* * *

First a patrol car gets the radio dispatch about a reported vehicle fire down at Sunset Blvd. Marina. The officer arrives, checks and sees what she believes is a body in the vehicle, and calls it in, which sends the fire department. They arrive at 4:40 and put out the flames, as well as confirm the presence of human remains in the driver's seat. By 5:40, Masuka, Quinn, Miller, Simms, and their lieutenant have all arrived on-scene. The only ones without a severe and head-busting migraine are Miller and (of course) Deb.

Vince is chugging water like a dying animal and groans frequently. "Three fucking hours," he complains. "Miami can't go three fucking hours into the new year without an unattended fucking death."

"If only people would be nice enough to die during business hours," Simms agrees, nursing his own bottle of water.

"Insensitive pricks," Quinn agrees. He's stuffing a drive-thru special down his gullet, and has an old ladies' sleep mask over his eyes as they wait for the all clear from the fire department to approach the smoldering vehicle. One by one, the lower-tier forensics crew have been dragging themselves there, and they're all waiting on the sidelines, some looking brighter-eyed than others.

Miller rolls her eyes at the theatrics. She has her husband and kids at home, so she didn't drink last night, opting instead to share the sparkling grape juice and tuck in by eleven. Her girls were still too young to be excited by the ball drop on TV, and she valued sleep on a holiday more than Dick Clark. She's pretty sure she's the only one operating on all four cylinders this morning, side from Lieutenant Morgan, who looks tired but functional enough, though she's grasping a cup of gas station coffee like it holds the secret to life itself in her hands.

* * *

When I arrive back at the scene of our staged suicide, I see Deb is standing off away from the others, which can't be good. She's still in the outfit she left my place in, though at some point, she got coffee. I explain the situation to one of the patrol officers nearby, and he agrees to stand close to the car and make sure Harrison is safe inside while I work.

It's not good for her to be alone; I know that's the last thing she wants. Or, at least that's what I think she's feeling. This is still relatively unknown territory for me, this feelings stuff. I reel through a dozen impulses, ranging from kissing her again to simply standing beside her; I settle for invading her personal space just enough to give her arm a reassuring rub with my palm. She leans into my touch without a word, closing her eyes and dropping her head to the ground. She looks so tired.

The firemen give their signal shortly after I greet Masuka, Quinn, and the others. The car is completely destroyed and blackened, and there's very little left of Maria, so little that no one even recognizes the car or the fact that it's a female occupant. I wait patiently while they photograph and catalog, hoping that they'll soon say they don't need me since there isn't any blood and they don't need to be paying a cop his regular salary to babysit.

But one of the newer detectives- Miller- is sharper than the rest this early morning. She starts putting the pieces together rather quickly once they retrieve the gun from the passenger side floorboard. "This is Miami Metro issue," she calls, then goes around back to check the plate. "Oh, fuck. State-owned. This might be one of ours, guys," she says somberly, and everyone perks up a little. Great. I was hoping that this particular revelation would come later, after the medical examiner and missing persons reports collided...

"No need to jump to conclusions," Deb pipes up, moving closer to the rest of us and looking each of them in the face evenly. "And with the amount of damage to the body, obviously we're looking at dental and DNA for an identification anyway. What else can you tell us, Vince?"

"Well, I'm no arson investigator- where the fuck is that guy, anyway?- but it looks like someone used an accelerant- probably gas- and doused the car. Just glancing at the body, there appears to be a sizable exit wound in the top of the skull, consistent with the caliber of the handgun on the floorboard. I'd say someone didn't want to leave a mess behind when they offed themselves, so they set the fire first, then took one to the cerebellum."

A flawless performance and analysis from Masuka; I couldn't have scripted it better. I made a note to bring him two bear claws on my next doughnut run.

"Oh, shit." One of the techs has opened the glove box, and an old laminate, singed but readable, has fallen into her open hand. "Lieutenant Maria LaGuerta," she reads.

There's a lengthy and stunned silence.

"No way," says Quinn finally. "No fuckin' way is that LaGuerta." He's instantly on the phone, but Deb's beat him to it.

"The captain's not answering her phone," she says, with a note of panic in her voice that I'm sure she isn't having to add for dramatic effect. "Not her house, not her cell."

"Run the plate," Simms says, now on his own phone. Meanwhile, Quinn goes off into the distance, one hand over his unoccupied ear to muffle the outside noise, focused intensely on his conversation.

I stand there, looking shocked and being absolutely useless. Masuka joins me, being as everyone else is scrambling around with the police end of the business and our techs are doing the detail work. They didn't know LaGuerta well; this is just another scene to wrap up, and the sooner they complete it, the sooner they can get back to their families and their beds.

He fiddles with his phone just as I put mine back into my pocket. "Another missed call from an unknown, blocked number. Do yourself a favor, never put your phone number on Craigslist."

"Don't post in the "men for transexuals" section of Casual Encounters," I joke.

"Har, har," he responds, then we are both silent for a moment. When the conversation begins again, he sounds much more thoughtful. "This is crazy. LaGuerta eating her gun? What the actual fuck, man?" the smaller man asks me, both of us leaning against the evidence van. "I know she was facing another inquiry because of all the shit with your wrongful arrest, but seriously?"

I put my hand on my forehead, running my fingers through my hair and blowing air out with a lengthy exhalation. "I don't know. I'm wondering who else she called, though," I say. Setting up more pieces.

"What do you mean?"

"She called me tonight, right before midnight. She was saying how her career was done, and how she was sorry that she'd ever started the investigation, that she couldn't believe she'd not seen how Doakes was a killer all along, and what a shitty cop that made her," I lie, amazed as usual by how effortlessly they fall from my lips. "She told me to enjoy my son and the holiday. I figured she was drunk and remorseful," I reflect. Masuka looks thoughtful and appreciative that the narrative is fitting together so nicely tonight. A better detective, a better investigator like Liddy or Lundy or even dear Deb might have been suspicious at how it was coming together, but they were all exhausted, and that would be our salvation. That, and the fact that LaGuerta had made far more enemies than friends in her time at Miami Metro. There were few that still counted her as a friendly face- and sadly enough, one of those few arrived just as they finished scraping her remains from the charred vehicle.

Angel's face was a contorted mess of anguish as they loaded the black bag into the back of the coroner's van. He pushed past the uniforms and made his way into our midst, ignoring their protests until we assured them that he was one of Miami Metro, albeit quite recently pensioned. "Is it her?" he asked, over and over, even though he knew we wouldn't know for hours, or even days. We clapped him on the back and offered our sympathies anyway; Deb hugged him close. She caught my attention over his shoulder.

"You can go, Dex," she says. "Get Harrison home. You too, Vince- we're wrapping up here. We'll have to wait on the M. E.'s report, but then let's figure out what happened here."

I nod and leave, heading back to my place and arriving just as Jaime pulls into the parking lot. I hand Harrison off to her and retreat back into my bedroom, where I barely have time to pull off my clothes before I pass out on the bed. I don't bother to set an alarm.

* * *

Jaime feeds Harrison some breakfast, though he's cranky from his interrupted sleep schedule and picks at his Cheerios and banana slices. She settles him down in front of the TV and pulls out her homework, managing to finish a few pages before there's a knock at the door. She looks over and is bemused to see he's fallen asleep upright against the back of the couch.

She feels wary answering, considering the last midday visitor they'd had dragged her employer off to jail. But it's just Quinn, hanging in the doorway and looking exhausted. He's got two cups of coffee balanced in a carrier; they slosh through the sipping holes and drip down onto the welcome mat.

He gives her a goofy, hopeful smile. "Hey, Jaime," he says, holding out the coffee like a peace offering. "Is Dexter home?"

"He's sleeping," she says flatly, taking the coffee and moving aside to let him come in. "But I take it you're not here for him."

"Not exactly," he agrees. He lowers his tone by about six octaves in an attempt to not disturb her charge's slumber, which is something Jaime definitely appreciates. They lean over the kitchen counter as they continue their quiet conversation.

"Look, I know I was an ass last night," he says, picking at a chip in the formica. "I was drunk and an idiot, but I've been interested in you for a while. You're pretty hot, and a lot smarter than me, so basically, you're the total package. And I figure any chick that would let me strip off my clothes and crawl into bed with her after puking in her kitchen sink has to be halfway to sainthood."

"You flatter me." She gives him a half smile and an evaluating look. He's older than anyone else she's dated, and he doesn't have his shit together. But he has a good sense of humor, he's handsome, and he's...earnest, if nothing else. "So, what are you trying to accomplish, here?" she finally adds.

"Let me take you out to dinner, someplace without a liquor license." He turns the charm on to afterburner levels. Fortunately, she's equipped with her own wiles.

"Oh, I don't know about that. I might need a few drinks, myself." _Burn._

* * *

A couple of hours later, after nap time, there's another knock at the door. Jaime goes over and answers it, ready to flirt with Quinn some more, and instead finds one of Dexter's elderly neighbors standing with a potted orchid.

"Hello, dear. I saw Mr. Morgan had this sitting out my his door, and knew it would have died in the cold, so I brought it in for him. Could you be a dear and put it in his apartment for me?" The old woman gives a mostly toothy smile and holds out the pot with wobbly hands. The purplish-black flower trembles.

"Sure, no problem," Jaime says, taking the plant and thanking the woman. She sits it down in Harrison's bathroom and gives it some water. Then she sits down in front of the TV, and gasps as the news comes on with a big picture of Hannah McKay. It's one of the last stories of the broadcast.

"And finally, tonight, Miami Metro police and the Department of Corrections are on the hunt for escaped convict Hannah McKay. Infamous for her role in the Wayne Randal case, Ms. McKay now faces murder charges in the case of true crime writer Sal Price. Ms. McKay escaped from custody while being treated at an area hospital for an apparent stroke. Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is encouraged to call the tip line..."

She grabs her phone and texts Deb after she locks the deadbolt.

* * *

It's almost three o'clock in the afternoon when I finally rise and shower, longer this time, scrubbing throughly and enjoying the hot water on my skin. Just as I step out, I hear the message notification go off from my phone. It's a text from Deb.

"M.E. Report back, prelim says LaGuerta. Need you."

Two words. Yet what a summary of our lives. And oh, my clever Deb. That could be an innocent enough message, anyone might think it was a professional statement. The lieutenant needs her forensics guy. It could even be read with a sarcastic or bitter tone: _Need you to come in to work now. _But I know it's not, somehow. After all, I _need_ her, too. And that's something I'm just now finally figuring out.


	3. three: Beyond the Sea

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"Beyond the Sea"

_The sea. I've nearly drowned in it; I was born in a pool of blood, and so was Harrison, and now, so was Debra. Over and over, it comes down to the water. They say that water is the element of emotion, that our biorhythms are linked to the pull of the sea and her tides. The depth and pressure have held my secrets for so long now; I live in fear of the day that they might again be exposed. And now, so does she. She's no water creature, no mermaid; she's always been flame, burning bright, a phoenix who always rises from the ashes. But will I snuff her out, even accidentally? Will she drown in this new reality we've created?_

* * *

"Dexter, pick up. It's Angel. I need you, buddy."

Angel Batista, one of my oldest friends. He's been there since the beginning of my career; one of those that joined Miami Metro in the interim between Harry's retirement and my college graduation and subsequent hiring. He's recently retired and the new owner of a restaurant that he's appropriately renamed Angel's. At one point in my life, all I wanted to be was Angel: an honest man, a normal man, a good man with morals. Well, standard issue morals, anyway.

Perhaps if I'd had those morals, or at least a fraction of them, I wouldn't have let myself fall in love with another serial killer, and then I'd need not have worried about where Hannah McKay was right at this moment. I wondered if Deb was thinking along the same lines, especially the self-judgment about being in love with a serial killer. Or if she was thinking about Hannah's escape, and how dearly she'd enjoy tracking her down and, well, exacting justice.

Yes, life would be much easier if I were Angel Batista.

I didn't really want to be him now, though- wracked with sorrow over the death of his ex-wife, Maria LaGuerta, just three days ago. It was an apparent suicide. But Deb and I knew better; just as I'd been about to kill Maria to protect our secret, Deb had done the deed for me, choosing my worthless, murdering life over that of an innocent superior's. I couldn't understand the logic behind it, but I could understand the emotion. She chose me, just as I would always chose her, over anyone. Love factored in there somewhere, too, but we were still figuring that part out.

He leaves a message on the answering machine I hardly remembered I owned. Most people hang up on it and try my cell if I don't answer the house phone. I don't even think Deb still has the number programmed into her own phone. But Angel's always been a traditional kind of guy, so he dutifully leaves his message and even a callback number after the tone.

My aforementioned partner in crime, Debra, knocks at my door just as Angel gives up. She's dressed in a black pant suit and eyes me as she comes through the doorway. I haven't gotten my clothes completely on yet; I'm working on the buttons of my shirt, and disappear into my bedroom to hunt down a tie. I waiver between options, settling on a boring, steel gray one, and carry it back out to the living room. Deb is scrutinizing my Christmas tree.

"When are you going to take this thing down?" She scowls at a pretty gilded glass lily ornament that's at her eye level. She doesn't even know it was a gift from Hannah, and she _still_ hates it. She turns to face me as I answer.

"I don't know, I was hoping Jaime would help me with the undecorating aspect. Maybe when she and Harrison get done at the pool. I guess I could leave her a note." I scribble down my plea on a sheet of paper and leave it on the counter, and hand the tie to Deb, waiting patiently for her to loop it around my neck and tie it, just like she has since we were kids and Harry got sick of trying to teach me.

She does in seconds, her nimble fingers threading the fabric like a pro. She pulls the knot to my throat, and something...flickers...in her eyes. She rises up on tiptoe and ghosts a kiss onto my mouth, muttering "I always liked you in black."

* * *

We take her loaner car to Maria's funeral. It's a seaside affair in the park closest to the station; it's the same place we staged Harry's. The turn out is huge; many dignitaries that didn't know the Captain at all say nice things about her and her groundbreaking career. There are wreaths around the casket from many facets of the Cuban community; Matthews gives the closing remarks, and helpfully avoids mentioning how she destroyed his career with near mechanical precision.

Deb and I sit in Angel's row with the rest of the crew and keep extremely somber faces. As the we shuffle past the casket, he lays a wreath of red roses on the lid; Deb and I each lay a white rose amid the blooms as we take our turns. A little gaggle of kids leave a teddy bear dressed like a cop, which breaks whatever hole I have for a heart. I see Deb notice it and glance away with a pained look on her face; I step toward her and give her hand a squeeze that she answers with one of her own.

My victims rarely get funerals beyond their burial at sea. I can only imagine how difficult this must be for her. For me, it's mostly awkward, and I keep picturing something descending from the clouds or crashing up through the waves, some spiteful creature to point a wicked finger and scream "It was them!" before this gathered crowd of witnesses. Though I didn't kill LaGuerta, my actions did; the feelings in Deb I cannot control did; I am just as responsible. And Maria was an innocent. A scheming, dirty cop, yes, but also _not_ a murderess.

Though considering that she was screaming at Deb to "put me down" in cold blood like an animal just before she died, it's pretty hard for me to muster any sympathy for the late Captain. She could have at least asked Deb to arrest me first. I wouldn't even have resisted.

* * *

Most of us elect to go get a drink in Maria's memory in lieu of attending the burial; Angel shows up at the bar afterward, and we give him another round of condolences. But he seeks me out specifically, and I can't understand why until he actually says it out loud.

"Maria and I- we were married. No one else here knows what it's like to lose their wife, Dex," he says. He leans against me and breathes warm tequila on my face. Well, he's got it right in that regard. I know better than to point out that Rita and I were very much married, and he and Maria were quite divorced at the point of death, so I give him a clap on the back and say "I understand, buddy. Anything you need, you let me know."

Quinn jumps in and mimics my motion; I'm grateful for it, and I make a break for the men's room as the liquor catches up with me. Masuka's beat me to it, and we wait our turn. He jumps when his phone buzzes in his pocket. "A bit close to my boys. Damn dress pants," he groans. He makes a similar noise when the identity- or lack thereof- pops up on the screen. "Another damn blocked number. And I'm still not answering. Jeez, you miss a credit card payment, and the whole world wants to make sure you're not fucking dead," he grumbles. I nod as though it's a common problem. Maybe for other people it is.

Just as I slip back out of the door, passing back past the rather lengthy line, I bump into Deb. She looks up at me, her face dropping her snarl and probably half a dozen expletives dying on her tongue. Instead she says, "Oh, it's you."

"Indeed it is," I answer, teasingly. "Just me. Your-"

"Right, whatever," she says, grabbing my arm and pulling me back toward the table. She collects her purse and rubs Angel's back one last time. "I'm Dex's DD, so we're leaving," she informs the others, who lift their chins in acknowledgment, even if they neglect to comment on our role reversal. I'm not known for drinking in public places; she's notorious for it. But she's too afraid to loosen her inhibitions and let anything slip tonight, so she's stayed sober.

I remember on the car ride back to my place that the only person I frequently drink around is her, and that began long before she knew about my secret. I guess I've always trusted myself around her. Keeping that part of my life compartmentalized has always just been second nature. Now, I don't have much of anything left to hide from her. She knows almost _everything_.

It thrills me and makes me sick to my stomach at the same time. Harry would have been so disappointed. Then again, I doubt he would have been thrilled at me making out with his daughter, either. Or at the mention of his daughter shooting her boss in a shipping container. But life happens, right? Especially to those of us left alive to deal with the consequences of _his_ decisions.

* * *

Quinn is drunk enough to know he shouldn't drive, but reasonably sober enough to know he can call Jaime and not sound like an ass on the phone, so he exits the bar once Angel's finished sobbing on his shoulder.

She picks up on the fourth ring. "Hey, Joey," she says, and doesn't even sound irritated. Smashing!

"Hey, beautiful. So, about that date. I'm thinking... Angel's? On Sunday?"

"You want to take me to _my brother's_ restaurant? That doesn't sound like a terrible idea?" He can all but hear the mortification in her voice.

"No, Sunday's his day off. Besides, I'm a partial owner... we're gonna get excellent service. If you don't wanna spoil your appetite for... dessert, or whatever, we can do lunch. Come on, let Dexter watch his own kid for an entire day. I promise it won't kill him."

"Sunday... I suppose that could work. And what do you know about kids?"

"Almost nothing. Think of this as your opportunity to educate me."

"Believe me, the prospect of adult conversation with someone besides my boss is all the thrill I need. I'll be here. Pick me up at 11? And we're getting cupcakes from Nonni's afterward."

"You would name the most expensive bakery in Dade county for dessert. At least I know you have good taste. I'll see you then."

Quinn snaps his phone shut with only a slightly inebriated smile.

* * *

Dusk is closing in when we take the exit that leads to my neighborhood. I make a snap decision before she drives any closer to the apartment complex. "Could you take me by the boat?"

"Sure," she says, sounding puzzled, but putting on her turn signal anyway. I'm feeling a little lost. The day has been way too weird and unpleasant, and I need to get out on the water and clear my head. After she pulls into the parking lot, the gravel crunching under the tires of her rental, she throws the transmission in park and watches me gather my things, but makes no move to do the same.

"Well, come on," I say, giving her a look. She sighs and smiles a little, cutting the engine and pulling off her suit jacket, leaving it tossed across the back seat. I do the same with my jacket, and loosen my tie. I go in to the convenience store in the middle of the boatyard, it's buzzing neon sign still humming, and buy us a case of beer and some bait. Then I escort Deb out onto the _Slice of Life_.

Debra has always enjoyed boats, though she's not a good swimmer. But she likes the way that I cut the hull through waves and the way the belly of the boat slaps the water when I slice through bigger boat's wakes. I don't go too far out- nowhere near my usual dumping ground- but turn on the sonar and idle it down to look for fish. She leans out over the bow and squeals like she's thirteen again.

"Dolphins!" A little group of them nose at the surface for air, their dorsal fins and the tips of their tail flukes the only pieces of them I catch in the moonlight as they slip out of sight. They're out fishing, too, and I cast my line off the opposite side of the boat in deference.

"What, not in the mood to catch a whale tonight, Captain Ahab?" she asks jokingly.

"I wouldn't violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act," I say solemnly.

"But stabbing a murderer in the aorta-" She makes a motion with her hands, pretending to weigh the scales of justice. I counter,

"Flipper never killed anyone."

"No, I guess that was Shamu, up in Orlando." She rolls her eyes and laughs, for the first time I can remember since the nightmare on New Year's. A real, actual laugh, not one faked for the sake of normalcy. It's a nice sound.

I cast and reel, cast and reel. The repetitive motion is soothing to me, cranking in the line bit by bit, trying to tease the fish into biting. The weather's been all wrong for fishing anyway, but it's also calming her, so I persist. She even grabs one of my spare rods and settles beside me, though she makes me bait the hook and throws an old rag over her lap because she doesn't want her suit pants to smell like fish.

She manages to get our lines tangled somehow, out there in the deep, and we don't realize it's happened until we start to reel them in, both thinking we've got a bite. But we only have each other, our lures tangled up together. The boat rocks gently in the water, and the moon puts her soft glow on everything.

Away from land, everything is crisp and the air isn't nearly as muggy, the humidity drops and I can see her so clearly, the way she smiles as she tries to pick the lines apart. I reach for her hands and pull them toward me, afraid she'll prick her finger on one of the hooks. Her hair blows in the wind, and her top three buttons are loose. I focus on her bottom lip.

I push the mess of bait and hooks off the seat, and kiss her again. This is a searing kiss, a long and promising sort of kiss, and she pushes me back against the seat and runs her hands back along my sides and pulls me up to her. She feels excited and tense and afraid; I try to calm her, pushing my fingers into the knotted muscles of her back as I nip at that bottom lip, which is swollen now and even more tempting.

My whole body is reacting to her, and she grinds her hips into mine, rolling them with the waves as she kisses me. Then she starts to trace her way down my neck, loosening my tie, pulling it off, and throwing it overboard. I groan. It's a helpless sound; she has the power to undo me, to destroy me in a way that no one else ever could, and giving into that is incredible. It's freeing. After a lifetime of always having to be in control and measured in every action, every step, every word, relinquishing that to her and trusting her to not abuse it is nirvana.

I pull her closer and she hooks her legs around my waist as I flip us, almost tripping over the rods as I settle her into the longer bench seat and reciprocate her ministrations to my collarbone with some of my own.

I hear the boat long before I see it, pulling away from her. A spotlight shines across the water, and an official-sounding voice calls out over the waves. "Florida Fish and Game Warden, please have your identification, licenses and catch ready." The officer brings his larger vessel down to an idle and pulls alongside my boat, leaning over to shine his light at us. Deb's straightened her shirt and pulls her credentials from her purse as I pull my own from my wallet and the glove box of the boat. Everything's legal, of course. I don't recognize this officer, which is weird and the reason he's disrupted us, probably- the usual warden knows my boat and only waves when he passes, sometimes stopping to have a chat if it's a slow day on the water.

He climbs aboard after dropping his anchor and checks my bait wells to confirm I don't have anything poached or any items of contraband, then re-boards his vessel and wishes us a good night.

It had been a good night. A very _interesting_ night. But it's getting late now, so I pull up my own anchor, and we head back to the dock. Deb steers the boat for a while, and I like watching her face as she purposely crashes us bow-first into the biggest waves. The boat bucks, but I don't mind. It's worth the discomfort to see the look of pleasure on her face.

I am finding there are a lot of things I'd be willing to do to see that look pass across on her features.

* * *

After they get back to the dock, she drops Dexter back at his apartment and goes back to her little house by the sea. She's always been one to appreciate the ocean from afar, safer on the shore, a hesitant and weak swimmer. But Dexter's never been that way; he's always been drawn to the water. So his decision to bring her out into his element and what?- _Seduce her?_- isn't really surprising. And she'd loved it. They were safe and away from everyone who would judge them, call them sick and disgusting and siblings. And that was without anyone knowing that they were killers.

The funeral was hard. The whole day was hard. And the night had been wonderful, and frustrating, at least when the game warden interrupted.

She was hang-dog tired and remembered just as she walked in the door that she'd stripped the bed a few days ago and never dried the sheets to put them back on. She trudged into the laundry room, tossed another scoop of power into the wash, and started it again, trying to rid her bedding of the rank, mildewed smell of wet fabric left to rot. She stripped to her panties, threw on a tank top, and pulled the fluffy throw over her body as she collapsed on the couch.

She slept very soundly for a few hours. But then she had a dream. She was sitting on her couch, and Harry was in the chair across from her. She tried to talk to him, but though his lips moved, no sound came from them. Then Dexter came up from behind Harry, gave her a conspiratorial smile, and swiftly slashed his throat, her father falling sideways and spilling his blood all over the tropical print on the fabric.

Deb awoke with a start and panted, "Fuck!" She grabbed her phone off the coffee table and checked the time, noticing she had several missed calls and a single text from Dex:

"Somehow, I miss you."


	4. four: Night on the Sun

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"Night on the Sun"

_Sometimes, the strangest things can trigger a memory from the past. I catalog things as part of my career, bits and pieces of lives interrupted, hints that can solve a crime. But part of being human is our links to the material stuff that permeates our lives. From a swinging Barbie head to a plate that Rita chipped but I can't bear to throw away, there's little things that link us to the past, and those material things that link it all together. _

* * *

Quinn's the one who mentions it, actually, on his lunch date with Jaime. He's scrolling though his email and gets one about a Groupon in Miami as he waits for their entrees and for Jaime to get back from the rest room.

She finally does, settling back into the booth with a heavy sigh. "Ugh. My brother's got to do something about those bathrooms, they're horrifically tacky. Do you think he'd let me call my friend in from school? She's in interior design classes..."

"Maybe," Joey says, not really listening. "Hey, maybe Dexter would like to do this with his kid? I get this Groupon shit my sister signed me up for. Reviews and coupons and crap, you know."

"Yes, I know what Groupon is."

"Well I've got one for some parent and child night at the modern art museum, half off. Want me to forward it to you?"

"Sure, he might be interested in it. Of course, with the way his schedule goes, I might end up being the one who takes Harrison. He's always so busy." She picks up her soup spoon and examines it closely, apparently checking to make sure the dishwasher is working properly.

"Oh yeah?" Quinn still hasn't forgotten Dexter's strange behavior, though he dropped his investigation long ago. Something still unsettled him about the blood splatter analyst.

"Well, not so much lately, but he's always at the lab. Hell, you work there, you know." Apparently satisfied with the spoon, she moves on to the knife, holding it up to the light.

"Sure, sure." But he knows that they're not there to discuss her boss. He changes the subject.

"Enough about your employer, _Miss_ Batista. Do you actually like cupcakes, or are you just trying to be trendy and like them because everyone else does?"

"Who doesn't like cupcakes? Oh, gross. There's fingerprints all over my salad fork," she says, flagging down a waiter. Joey sighs into his napkin.

* * *

Two days after our trip on the boat, I wake up feeling warm and heavy. I can remember little pieces of a dream I'd been having, and I almost smell Deb on the air as I shift around under the covers and stretch. A flash of thought streaks across my brain as I slip my arm under the unused left pillow: _I wish she were here._ Really? Like a lovesick puppy, Dexter.

I shake off my apparently sixteen-year-old brain and throw the covers aside, getting dressed just as the sun begins to creep through the shades. I know Harrison will be awake soon, and I grab my phone though I know just as assuredly that Deb will not. It's Sunday and unless we get called in, she may well sleep until noon.

I try to be quiet in the kitchen as I fix us some pancakes, throwing some blueberries in the mix. My mind wanders back... those _were_ the kinds of things I had I thought about her when I was sixteen. She was losing her childish frame and becoming a haunting beauty then, all long lashes and coltish limbs and shaded, sarcastic smiles. Her foul mouth grew even more colorful as Doris grew sick and weak; Deb was ever more daring. Sometimes, Harry would catch me staring at her, and give me a look that was equal parts fatherly and pitying. Did he wonder back then who he was sending out into the world- a cop and a killer- or was he just trying to survive and do the best he could? I have a little more understanding of the challenge, now that I am a father myself, but I will always question his choices.

Harrison wanders out from his bedroom, breaking my nostalgia. "Pancakes?" he asks expectantly, rubbing his eyes and looking up at the stove. "Of course, buddy!" I enthuse, plating our breakfast and setting the table, helping him into his booster seat. A half hour, a pancake on the floor, and one spilled glass of milk later, we finish and go to play with his trains, and I spend the morning with my son. He looks more and more like his mother every day. We have a Facetime chat on my phone with Astor and Cody right before lunch, then just as we're heading out to grab something quick, there's a knock at the door.

Though I'm hopeful it's Deb, it's just the FedEx guy. "I have a package for Dexter Morgan," he says, handing over the electronic signature pad for me to sign. It's a document mailer, and I stuff it under my arm as we head to the car. I figure it's probably some court documents, or some other county asking for my help on some forensic matter.

Boy, am I wrong.

* * *

Deb has her first normal weekend in what feels like forever. She does paperwork at the station for five hours on Saturday, then goes home and makes herself a roast chicken with vegetables and rice and eats about half of it, then runs for an hour because she feels gross about pigging out. She reads the pile of magazines she's collected on her coffee table and catches up on some of the TV shows she DVR's and then never has time to watch. She checks her Facebook and dismays at the dying houseplant in her kitchen, giving it some water and a hail Mary. She leaves a voicemail on Angel's phone when he doesn't pick up. She thinks about or begins a text to Dexter a dozen times, but only actually sends one, in response to his last:

"I know. Believe me."

Deb checks her mail, and it's all normal- ads and bills- aside from one little rice paper envelope, her name and street neatly typed, without a return address. She opens it, and a blue small heart, cut from paper, falls out into her open palm. There's a date on it, in small, hand-written numbers: _3-13-13_. She peers into the envelope, but there's nothing else inside. Is this some weird kind of wedding invitation precursor? There's half a dozen women she keeps up with online, scattered through the bottom half of Florida, that she graduated with. Though she's never been particularly feminine, rather more of the "one of the guys" types, she still maintains some facsimile of that normalcy. But she doesn't remember any of them getting engaged recently.

She shoves it back into the fancy envelope and throws it in her mail organizer, then goes to check on her brownies in the oven. They're almost done. She almost invites Dex and Harrison over to share them, but stops herself. With Jaime off this weekend, she's pretty sure he's not stalking anyone to kill, and maybe more than eighteen hours apart will let her cool down her head and heart a little.

Though her heart may well be a foregone conclusion.

She tries very hard not to think about Maria's face in the moment she died. When it comes back up from the depths of her mind, she turns the volume up on the TV, or tries to block it out with Dexter's face, the look of shock and amazement he gave her when she chose him over Laguerta.

* * *

Harrison beams down at me from the giant plastic play center at the fast-food place I've chosen for lunch. I wave up at him, and he races off through the tunnel. Other kids screech and giggle, and it makes me happy to see him playing with them so effortlessly, being a normal kid. The kind of kid I rarely got to be after the shipping container.

I turn my attention to the envelope. I pull the tab off and a pile of papers, stapled together, slide out into my hand. They're legal and official-looking, and addressed to me.

The mother that I sometimes forget I had evidently had family. What little I know of the Moser family is that they made themselves scarce from my mother's life once she started running away with drug dealers; considering the crowd she was involved with, I can't say I condone their actions or disloyalty, but I can understand it. But she did have a family; a mother, a father, and it seems she had a sister.

A sister named Margaret who married well and died recently and without an heir. _Very_ recently. The letter informs me that it was a brief illness, and that she'd only recently become aware of my and Brian's existence with the aid of a private investigator. She's left the majority of her estate to various charities, and twenty percent to her only living relative...me.

There's a number for me to contact in order to make the arrangements and find out further details. No mess with the burial or body; she's been donated to science, as per her wishes. All that remains, apparently, is the money.

Well, this is certainly a nice turn of events. I have a small fund set up for Harrison's college, and perhaps this unexpected windfall will be a good addition to that account. I tuck the paperwork back into the envelope and collect my son.

* * *

There's really no reason to keep ignoring his phone, so Vince Masuka finally answers it. There's a scared-sounding woman on the other end.

"Is this Vince?" she asks, and her voice triggers some tiny slice of memory. Amanda, or was it Amelia? Pretty Korean girl... he'd picked her up at a bar near a forensics conference about two years ago. Very vanilla in bed. She hadn't returned his calls afterward.

"Speaking," he affirms.

"We need to talk, Vince. In person. Can I meet you somewhere? I'm up in Orlando, but I'll drive down."

Even though he knows she can't see him, he still arches his eyebrow anyway. "All right." He names off a good sushi place near his apartment, giving her the address and making a date to meet the following weekend. "Can you tell me what this is about?" he asks, trying not to sound panicked. "No...I'll tell you when I get to Miami. Thanks, Vince," she says, hanging up.

He drives to work and takes a blood sample, running it for every panel he can think of, then sending another sample over to county to check for more exotic blood and serum-transmitted diseases. The rest of the week promises to be distracted...and scary.

* * *

Monday morning is a new kind of challenge for Deb and the rest of the homicide department. Their Captain has been buried, Angel has retired, and that leaves Quinn, as, almost laughably, a senior detective in the bullpen, with the recently transferred Miller and Simms as the up and comers.

Deb fixes herself some herbal tea (the set had been a Christmas gift from Jaime with a laughing encouragement to try something new), brewing the hot water in the coffee pot and taking probably more tries than would be reasonably explained to pack the tea into the little metal steeping ball. It hits the bottom of her Miami Metro mug with a clink, and she's so zoned out of it, watching it sink, that she almost jumps out of her skin when Dexter comes up behind her, tapping her shoulder to get her attention.

"Shitfuck," she gasps, and he smiles the same way he has since they were kids. He's always enjoyed scaring the crap out of her. (A more logical part of her brain wonders if he actually enjoys hunting her, but she dismisses the thought for her own sanity.) "Jesus, Dexter!"

"For someone who doesn't even believe in God, you certainly take his son's name in vain a lot," he drawls, giving a puzzled look to the water in the coffee pot. She snatches the handle and pours it down the drain, and takes a few gulps of her tea, almost spitting it into the sink. "Ugh, this needs sugar or something."

He pulls a few packets out of the drawer and tosses them at her, setting up the coffee machine and making a fresh pot for the crew. They're both early, though not the first ones in the station; Miller's at her desk already, typing away at her laptop. Dex spares her a glance through the glass, then turns back to Deb. "Are you busy tonight?"

"Just the usual...attempt to clean my house, try to forget about New Year's...pop a few Xanex around eleven. What's up, you got a date?"

She hates the smallest fraction of challenge and insecurity that creeps into the final word, she really does.

"Well, Harrison and I are going to go over to the museum tonight for a special event, Jaime sent me an email about it. They do an event with the artwork and let the kids create a piece on their own. I thought maybe you'd like to join us."

"Art?" she asks skeptically. About the closest thing she has to art in her life are some framed posters and some canvas pictures in her bathroom that she thought were particularly charming on her last visit to Ikea. She vividly remembers failing high school art because her apple drawings were lopsided, and her teacher was a bitch.

He shrugs. "We're expanding our horizons. And we have a coupon. It's only one night."

"Is this going to get messy?" she asks, accepting the idea.

That earns her another one of his small, rare smiles. "It's a bunch of little kids and a bunch of paint and markers, what do you expect? Wear jeans."

"All right. I'll meet you there, I'll be here pretty late tonight, there's a fuck ton of paperwork on my desk. What time?"

"It starts at seven. Thanks," he says, and finishes his coffee, nodding a goodbye to her and heading back to his lab. It's a short-lived farewell, though; within an hour, they're all headed down to the beach. A body has washed ashore. Maybe that's one of the few nice things about being a homicide cop in Miami- job security.

* * *

Vince holds his nose as he bends over the heavily decomposed body. I hover around him, snapping photographs, because our assistants either have the day off or are out sick. Running our department with a skeleton crew for whatever reason always sucks.

Pun not intended.

The sea life has eaten off the majority of the flesh from the face, hands, and feet, though some still clings to the back of the skull. It appears to have been a Caucasian male, approximately 6'2", stripped of his clothing, without any distinguishing marks or dental work. These are the kinds of remains that are hardest to identify. We're reasonably assured that it's going to be our case, though, because there's a gunshot through the skull, and on a personal note, I'm sure that it's not Hannah's father thanks to that fact. The thought of how stupid it was to simply dump him overboard has come to me in more introspective moments, but then again, that had simply been an illogical point of time for me across the board.

"Masuka's acting even weirder than usual," Deb says, meeting me over at the van as I go to change lenses.

"Is he?" I ask, screwing the new lens into the housing. It clicks into place smoothly, and I start fiddling with the camera settings. "I hadn't noticed."

"He's extra twitchy," she says, fixing him with her detective's eye. He fidgets and looks away when he catches her line of sight.

"Well, you're giving him a twenty yard stare, Deb," I say reasonably. She focuses back on me, and I snap her picture to test out the setting. She makes a goofball face at me, and I take another one, tweaking the aperture setting. As I walk back to the body, she calls after me, "Find out what his problem is!"

I ask Vince myself as I take the next round of photos, after the coroner has arrived and waits impatiently for us to finish so he can bag up the remains. He sighs and looks at me.

"Have you ever had someone call you months after you slept together and ask to see you?" he asks, worry lines wrinkling his forehead.

"Can't say I have," I answer. I press the shutter and frame another shot of the body's location from a distance.

"Fuck me, I just don't want it to be AIDS or syphilis or any of that shit, bro. I've been Googling and you can have some of this crap for years and not even know it. I mean, I always wrap it, but still. It's scary."

I nod. "I told you, man, stay off the Craigslist hookers."

"That's the weird thing, she wasn't even one of the kinky ones. She was a good, nice girl. The only odd thing about her was that she never returned my calls, but I figured maybe she had her reasons, you know? But now she wants me to meet up again with her, and I don't think she's looking for a pickle tickle, if you get my drift."

"Drift gotten, Vince."

* * *

Deb throws her purse down as soon as she steps into her cottage, heading for her shower. She's got forty-five minutes to change and get to the modern art museum, so she scrubs her face, speeds through her hair routine, and skips shaving her legs. She slides into her oldest pair of jeans, a tank top, and then throws one of Dexter's old work shirts she stole at one point or another over it. Just to avoid looking like a total soccer mom, she puts on a pair of old wedge-heeled espadrilles that have been kicking around the back of her closet for about five years, and puts some sparkly chandelier earrings on. She walks through a cloud of perfume, and stops herself from doing any other primping. After all, it's not an actual date, right?

No, just an evening with her foster-brother turned occasional partner in crime and love interest. And his son. And a fuckload of other Miami residents, the large percentage of which might be artistic types who will laugh at her decidedly skewed perception of their medium. At least she knows Dexter will be even more socially awkward than she will be.

She's about fifteen minutes late, but she still spots them easily anyway, though she's missed the introduction. Dex catches her up as Harrison happily throws paint at a canvas almost as big as he is. The staff have made the inside of the room into a big plastic bag, and the irony doesn't escape Deb. She mumbles as much under her breath as the kids yell and throw paint at their art, and each other. Luckily, they're all wearing plastic jumpsuits to protect their clothes and shoes.

"That was my first thought, too," he says softly. Harrison turns, his blue eyes huge and a giant grin on his face. "Daddy! Blue!" He smears his hand right down the middle of the painting, then dunks his hand in the red and swirls it in circles, mimicking the older girl beside him. Deb sees her smile down at him, and she makes a sloppy flower with her green paint, then borrows some of his red for the petals. He squeals and grabs her hand, leaving a big purple handprint on her plastic suit, and they both giggle.

"They said it's tempera, and it will wash right off their hands," he says skeptically, smiling despite himself as Harrison's painting takes a drastically brownish-green turn as he smears some orange into the mix. He turns his head and tilts his chin toward her. "Nice shirt. Didn't I used to own it?" She smirks back at him.

"Possession is nine-tenths."

"It looks better on you, anyway," he says, and she chokes on the bottle of water she's been sipping. He thumps her on the back. That was about as direct as Dex ever got, as far as innuendos went. At least as far as she knew.

After a few more moments, the kids are getting bored. A few parents who are dressed for the duty and the staff escort the kids to the big sinks in the back, and the remaining curators encourage the other parents to walk around the local artists' wing while they finish the cleanup and allow their artwork to dry.

Debra's like velcro on his side, though they don't actually touch in front of all these people. She just stays in his bubble, and they murmur opinions on the pieces to each other. Most of them are rather negative.

"Harrison's was way better." It's a mostly blank canvas with a single pink dot in the middle, with one long black line wrapped around the edge. "This one's called 'chaos1997'. What pretentious garbage."

Deb huffs, and he tells her to speak a little softer when the couple in front of them looks personally offended by her offhand remark. Personally, he agrees with her on almost everything.

They get to the end of the hall, where the most recent pieces hang. And she stops in her tracks and grabs his arm, public be damned. There's an eerily familiar face staring at them from the very end of the row, almost tucked in the corner.

It's huge abstract piece, mostly reds and yellows with pops of dark green, blue, and brown. Lila's face floats in the middle of it like a lily, and Dexter's profile lurks in the lower left corner, a menace with a big knife in his silhouetted hand. There are flames on the right, licking the edge of the frame.

It's like New Year's all over; she feels like her heart has stopped in her chest, the panic is rising and she knows he's seen it too, because he's gone still and quiet and doesn't resist when she tightens her grip even further. They creep toward the painting like it's a homing beacon. The little brass plaque beside the image says it's the work of Lila West, completed in five years ago, and a generous donation to the museum from a private collector.

"No one would know," he breathes, leaning in to the curtain of her hair. "It's just a profile, it's all in shadow. You know because you know me, no one else would look at that and think of me."

The name of the piece is on a bigger brass plaque underneath the painting, and she barks out a tiny, terrified laugh when she reads the title.

_My Dark Passenger_

Harrison throws his arms around her knees, shouting her name as he sneaks up on her. Dex high-fives him as he lifts his son up onto his hip. The other kids filter down through the hallway, meeting up with their parents, and the Morgans collect his artwork and head for the parking lot, a bit more shaken up than they had been when they arrived.

Dexter buckles Harrison into his car seat, then shuts the back door of his SUV and turns to Deb. Most of the other people have pulled out onto the street already; the parking garage is emptying out. She leans into his hug, and he gives her a long kiss above her brow.

"Be careful on the road, it's been raining," he says, and she nods, wishing they had the time or privacy to get closer. She settles for rubbing his palm in her hands before telling him good night.


	5. five: Plaisir d'Amor

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"Plaisir d'Amor"

_Pleasure. The human body is hard-wired with channels to circuit it around the body; our nervous systems light up with it like neon on the Strip at Vegas. Mother Nature's reward for an attempt at procreation, no matter how unsuccessful, misguided, or bizarre. I've lived so much of my life disgusted by those who are driven by the pursuit of pleasure solely, perceived them as weak. My own life's goal has always been control, and that's about as far from pleasure as you can get. At least, up until now._

Debra dreams.

She dreams she is in that damned shipping container again, she dreams that he is standing, arms raised, helpless and defenseless. Laguerta screams at her this time to "Arrest him!", and she does. The handcuffs click around his wrists and she leads him away and calls an ambulance for Maria. After the tranquilizer wears off, though, the real joke is on Deb, because then her boss comes and arrests her as an accessory to the murder of Travis Marshall. Everyone loses everything, except Maria, because she knows how to play the game.

Like some sick video game, the dream resets. This time, she shoots him right in the temple and he falls, dead before he hits the floor, and she screams and grasps at him and sobs and sobs, and when Maria crawls over with murmured noises of comfort, she punches her in the face and keeps covering his lifeless body with a river of tears.

It resets again. Dex tells her to do what she's got to do, Maria screams at her to shoot him, and Deb looks at both of them, this impossible decision, sticks her gun in her mouth and pulls the trigger. That's the shortest version of the dream, and it's the one that wakes her.

She's sticky in her sheets, and the bedside clock is glowing. It's 3:17 AM. Her mouth is dry and feels like cotton; she gets up, gulps down a glass of water, and doesn't anticipate his knock, though she's glad she's already up.

He breezes in her doorway, so full of energy. It seems to vibrate off of him. "Jaime's with Harrison, I told her I'd be working overnight for a case next week," he leads off, without preamble.

"And clearly you're not, so..." She pulls out a mug and starts the coffee pot, for her, not him. She vaguely thinks that maybe she should pull on some pj pants, instead of walking around in her long t-shirt and panties, but she decides against it.

"Of course not," he says, as though that was a foregone conclusion. "No, I was out... stalking."

"And?" She hadn't realized that he would already be killing again. She closes her eyes and leans back against the counter.

"I watched him. I had my gear all packed in the back, I had a plan... but no kill room ready, no plastic. I knew I needed to do all that to kill him, and I just...I just didn't feel like doing it."

"You didn't feel like doing it? Jesus, Dex, Harry taught you that procedure to keep you from getting caught. If you're going to do this, you can't half-ass it. Both our lives are depending on you not getting arrested." The coffee starts to perk and pool in the pot, and it smells delicious.

He leans over the sink toward her. "That's it, though- it's always been about the ritual. The kill room, the plastic, the blood slide- the idea that this Dark Passenger was telling me to kill, but that with the Code, I could give in to him and stay safe. But the Dark Passenger isn't real- Hannah helped me understand that."

"Did she? Remind me to give her a fucking medal. What about the blood slides?"

"I stopped taking blood slides when I killed Speltzer. I incinerated the box on top of his chest," he says carefully, gauging her reaction.

"You- what?" she sputters, nearly choking. "You...stopped? You quit taking trophies?"

"Yes," he sighs. "They seemed to...disgust you, so I stopped. And without the slides, what am I? I kill people who kill people. I kill people. You've killed people. Thousands, maybe a million people have ended the life of another. I just... I _kill_ people." He leaves the kitchen, crossing her living room to the couch, and sinks down. She follows him, taking the chair across from him.

"That's all I could think as I watched this guy. White collar, his partner fell down a set of stairs and it was ruled a suicide, but then there was evidence based on his velocity and angle of impact that he was pushed. And this guy was there that night, the only one there. Did he kill him? Even if he did, am I the judge? Harry wanted me to be the one who went after criminals after they'd been tried and freed, the ones that slipped through the cracks. But I have killed _so many_ people, Deb. People who didn't slip."

"Do you... what do you want to do, Dex?" She's afraid of the answer. She doesn't want to see him in jail, though it's where he belongs. She doesn't want to see him in a coffin, either.

But her worry is ill-founded.

"I don't want to do anything, I just... I just needed to talk about this, it felt like my thoughts were running through my head too fast to process. Was this all about the process, the compulsion? Killing someone and cutting them into a pieces... was this some kind of obsessive-compulsive ritual? It was all about the ritual. Without the ritual, without the Dark Passenger...I'm just a killer. I'm just like Brian."

He hangs his head, covering his eyes with his palms. She wants to wrap him in her arms, she wants to kiss him and assure him, but the words and actions all die on her lips and in her limbs. Instead, she just looks at him. He's always been so sure of himself: set on a path, righteous and self-assured in a way she'd always envied. But now he seems like a shade, naked before her judgement. And hers is swift.

"Don't you _ever _say that," she says in a low tone, nearly snarling. "You are _nothing_ like him. He killed innocent women to get your attention, he tried to get you to kill me. He was an idiot and a coward and I'm glad he killed himself before he could do any more damage. You were right to reject him and fight him off that night. You both would have gotten caught, and you would have fried. That, I guarantee."

He leans forward and catches her eyes, and then looks away, out the picture window behind her. He says something in a tone so low, she has to ask him to repeat it.

"I said, he didn't kill himself."

Her eyes widen. "You-"

"You would never be safe," he says gently. "He wanted so badly for me to join him, and he knew you were the person who kept me from being a killer without reason or remorse. He would have tried to kill you again, would have taken you again and made you suffer for my insolence. I trapped him and I staged his suicide. I slit my own brother's throat, for you." He looks ashamed, stricken, and she can see how deeply that hurt lies in his heart. "I called him Biney, when we were little. When I heard his voice, in that house... I remembered him, and my mother."

"Oh, God," she says, and bridges the distance between the couch and chair, flinging herself onto him, her arms around his neck and her legs splayed across his lap. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She doesn't know what she's apologizing for- maybe she's apologizing on behalf of the universe. He accepts it.

She pulls him close, and his head goes over her shoulder, pressing her into his chest. Before she knows it, she's kissing him again, gently at first, but with an increasing desperation, because he gave up so much for her, something she didn't even know he had. He gave up the first person he'd connected with for the sake of her safety. He kisses back just as ardently, pushing his fingers through her hair, and she draws herself up to straddle his hips with her legs. As they kiss open-mouthed, tongues warring, she starts to slide down his body, pausing to grind her pelvis on his knee, then ends up on her knees before him. He looks down at her, not knowing what's happening, but feeling open and exposed, with the truth of Brian's death before them and she kneeling at his feet, breathing heavy. She dives for his fly and answers his question. He groans as she takes him into her mouth, his head falling back and his arms straying across the cushions, grasping at nothing in particular.

It's been a very strange night, indeed.

* * *

I wake up to the smell of fresh coffee, and find myself on Deb's couch, cramped into a fetal position with my pants around my ankles but with my boxers still over my hips. She moves around the kitchen, peeking over the couch when she notices me stir.

"Morning," she says, with a look like a cat that got the cream. Oh, bad analogy. Like...a fox in the hen house? My brain is foggy, though the events of the previous visit flash back to me like a jolt. Our conversation, my confession, her reaction and the subsequent events...

She'd always been a talented woman, though at these activities, I'd had no idea. Of course. But now things had changed. And boy, was she talented. My toes curled involuntarily at the memory.

She seems to have an extra skip in her step, and I recognize her happiness. So clearly, she doesn't regret our actions last night, and I can't find a trace of regret, either. In fact, the way she swings her hip to close the fridge after she takes a swallow of milk straight from the carton has got me wondering about any other talents she's ready to reveal.

But real life has other plans, and obligations. Namely, work. She pushes me out the door to return home with a brief kiss to the lips and a laugh. I drive back to my apartment with a loopy grin on my face half the way there. My angel of a babysitter has my son prepped for the morning, her books spread across the kitchen counter. It's lucky that she takes online classes, otherwise, I might need an army of nannies. Though, to be fair, I end up paying most of her tuition by default nowadays. I shower and change then head to work, ready to face the day.

* * *

Joey Quinn wakes up in Jaime's bed, sadly as alone as he'd been when he fell asleep there. He'd hoped that he wouldn't be, but when he checks his phone, he finds a brief text from her:

"Sorry, had to leave girl's night early for Harrison, Dex will be at office all nite for case in AM. :("

He knows for a fact that that's bullshit, because he himself hadn't left the precinct until almost midnight last night, and hadn't seen so much as a light on in the forensics department, never mind Dex himself. His inner detective (who occasionally did still pipe up) was screaming about all these lies, but he reminded himself that Dex really wasn't committing a crime by lying to his extremely well-paid babysitter, and that he didn't really have a reason to give a shit what Morgan was up to all night.

But as a cop, even a dirty cop, it still bothered him.

He shrugs out of his dirty clothes and makes use of her shower. At least he can be around her stuff naked, if not the actual woman.

* * *

I make it into the office in the normal amount of time, and settle into my morning routine, which includes checking the office email. There's the usual amount of messages, but one catches my eye. Even though it's addressed to Masuka, I open it anyway.

"Victim match- Louis Greene" reads the subject. It appears that the body on the beach was someone we knew. Though I'd assumed he was killed on my boat, I really thought the Koshka brotherhood would have been neater. After all, these people were supposed to be professionals. The email informs us that the match was made with dental records on file, supplied by his adoptive family from Ohio, who had filed his missing persons' report a month ago with Miami Metro.

Just as well. At least now they'll have a body to bury, which is more closure than most of my victim's families ever get. Louis might have had terrible taste in video game design, a knack for pissing off the wrong people, and a royal pain in the ass at the end, but at least he wasn't a killer.

So that's something.

The rest of the day is boring. I try to write blood reports and end up thinking about the way Deb's lips made a perfect "O" when she breathed heavy, the way her face gets flushed when she's excited. I'm totally distracted and not really doing much, to be honest. This feeling of..._preoccupation_...was weird.

Masuka comes in looking like he has a stomach illness, and avoids me for most of the morning until we break for lunch. I make the mistake of engaging him in conversation while we wait in the sandwich truck line, and he breaks like a dam.

"I'm clean, I got the results. I don't know what she wants. I mean, I'm lucky, right? If she has anything, she didn't give it to me, and I didn't give it to her."

"Right," I agree, studying the specials board.

"And I mean, I gave it to her. Huh huh huh huh," he gives his weird laugh, more nervous sounding than usual.

"Maybe she has good news? Maybe she found something of yours in her car or something."

"Something she couldn't mail? Besides, I think we took my car that night. I don't really remember, it was a while ago. Fuck, I wish I did." By then, it's my turn to order, and when we get back to the tables, the topic changes to our open cases.

My mind wanders as we chatter away on the usual points: splatter, DNA, ballistics. I'm seeing her eyelashes against her cheek as she closed them, her hands on my thighs, the way she did something with her tongue that made me-

"Dexter. You said that three times already, bro, I get it. The pattern was clearly an impact splatter, your report will show that in court. Your mind in another place?"

I shake my head, trying to focus. "Kind of. Uh- I need to get back to the office, sorry," I say, not even bothering to make up a half-decent excuse. I hear him mutter "...right" as I stride off to the doors.

* * *

Debra is in her office when he pulls open her door, looking almost frantic. He looks behind him, then yanks the blinds shut and locks the door. She looks at him, his seeming panic spreading to her.

"What is it?" she demands. "Is there something?! Laguerta's case- Harrison? Oh God," she says, rising from her chair and coming around the front of the desk, confusion etched on her face.

He grabs her, really _grabs_ her, one hand on her ass and the other cradling the back of her head as he kisses her so hard it feels like he's bruising her lips. She starts to kiss him back, but breaks it off abruptly. "What's gotten into you?" she asks.

"I can't stop thinking about last night," he pants. "You're in my head. I can't _focus_."

"Well, kick me out," she half-smiles. "The way you were acting, I thought you were about to get arrested or something." She pecks his lips one more time and untangles herself, giving him some space before she gives into her baser impulses and bangs him in the desk, professionalism be damned.

She sits on the edge of her desk and tries not to act amused as he paces, seemingly deeply troubled. "I just keep imagining what we did and what we could do, what could happen, and how much I want to... how much I want to do those things."

"So, you're saying...wanting what we did last night, it's like...a need?"

"Exactly. It _is_ a need, it's like..." he falls silent for a few long seconds, then continues. "Oh, God. It is _exactly_ like The Need." He blows out the rest of his breath in a long huff and knits his fingers behind his head.

"_That _need?" she shrieks quietly. "The stabby, slicey, fucking-bag-people-up-and-throw-them-in-the-ocean Need?" Her hands start to shake.

"Well, minus the homicidal leanings and urges," he continues, trying quite valiantly to be comforting. "Nothing like that, aside from the intensity. I don't want any plastic, nothing pointy..."

"Just...me." She feels suddenly shy, like when she was fourteen, the last time she'd had a crush on him worth admitting, and looked away every time she felt his eyes on her. Which was often.

"Just you," he admits, reaching out to touch her chin and bring her gaze up to his. "Don't sell yourself short. You're a lot more than _just somebody_. You're..."

"Yeah, I get it," she smiles, half-heartedly punching him in the shoulder. "I'm your somebody. Now raise the damn shades before those gossip hounds start a war. And unlock the fucking door."

"As you command, LT," he says seriously, turning to leave. After he fixes the shades and opens the door, he pauses in the doorway.

"Tonight? My place?" he says, sounding so casual.

"Yeah, sure, I'll bring some beers," she says, not bothering to look up and hiding a smirk. She doesn't get to witness the matching one that graces his face all the way back to his office.


	6. six: Soul of Fire

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"Soul of Fire"

_If you let your dial wander through the radio stations, you'll end up hearing a lot of songs about love. They like to compare it to fire- which has always puzzled me, since love is supposed to be a good thing, and fire is a destructive force. It consumes almost everything, aside from the few metals it strengthens. The analogy in all those songs is starting to make sense now, though. The bond between the most important person in my life and myself has taken on a rather tempered quality lately._

Vince Masuka sits at his laptop in a crowded sushi bar. Unable to wait until the weekend, Amelia's agreed to meet him early, at seven, and it's a quarter til. He checks the time obsessively. Finally, he sees her face as she comes through the door, and she smiles when she spots him. He's so focused on her face, examining it for signs of disease, that he completely fails to notice the little girl holding her hand. She looks down at the toddler, then motions to him.

"Maddy, this is Vince. Vince, meet Maddy."

He blinks, then chokes on the air in his throat. It's a less than glorious way to meet his daughter.

* * *

The rest of the work day passes in a blur, and I bolt for the exit just as soon as it's acceptable for me to leave. I get home and relieve Jaime, and she seems grateful for the break as I take over. Harrison watches TV while I clean the apartment, mostly for something to pass the time. I organize my movies, not even recognizing half the titles. I assume they're stuff Jaime has bought for Harrison at one point or another. Then I move on to my seldom-touched books. I water the plants, and start cleaning my blinds. Then I start taking the lights apart and cleaning their housings. I'm seriously burning off nervous energy. Sure, some of it is pure nerves- after all, this is a new set of feelings. I've grown to like and enjoy sex in the last few years, more than just the physical pleasure. I've actually emotionally invested in and bonded with women in the years since I met Brian. But with Deb and our new relationship to one another... this is going to be something on a whole other level. Hannah accepted me, but she never had to really make peace with my whole self the way Debra has. And there was never, ever the same degree of trust between us.

Finally, the day turns to night, and I put Harrison to bed after his dinner and bath. On the way home I'd picked up some takeout for Deb and I, for later. And I got some Gatorade, because... well, we'd need to hydrate, for sure. I end up pacing the living room until she knocks softly on the door around nine.

She holds a six pack in each hand, and it turns out she used her foot to knock. She greets me with goofy grin and swings her hips as she comes through the door, and once it's shut, she turns and gives me a sweet, lingering kiss.

"They should be cold, I just got them at the gas station," she says, keeping her voice down, mindful of my sleeping son. She pulls two out of the carriers and stashes the rest in the fridge, uncapping the beers and carrying them to where I'm waiting on the couch. I flip through the channels until I find an old scary movie, and she curls up next to me. It's like a hundred nights before, except for now, my hand starts to drift over to her leg, and I trace the seam of her jeans up to her center. She squirms, pretending to be focused on the movie, then finally gives in and kisses me, pushing me back on the cushions unbuttoning my shirt and pushing it off as we battle for who gets to be on top. She wins, for now.

She stops and looks up at the hallway that leads to Harrison's side of the apartment. "Bedroom," she says in a low tone. I grab her hand and bring her along with me to my room, putting my hands on her hips and pushing her down to the mattress once I lock the door. She reaches to pull me up to her, but I shake my head no and pull her shirt up. She gets the idea and pulls her blouse off, letting it fall to the side of the bed and flicking open the hooks of her bra with one hand, revealing herself to me. I show her how much I appreciate the fact with my mouth, kissing one side then the other, then nipping my way down to her navel. She squirms and whispers curses as I lick the hollows of her hipbones, jutting up above the waistband of her low-rises. She lifts her hips as I yank down her zipper and slip her button free, and I tug her jeans off and toss them away to join her top. Now that we're almost naked, I make my way up the bed far enough to kiss her and press our bodies together, enjoying the contact of skin on skin. She growls and pulls my bottom lip between her teeth, trying to flip us, but I hold her back with a quiet "Shhhh," then make quick work of her panties, sliding them down her legs as I move back down her body. When I reach my goal, she really starts to make interesting noises- desperate little mewls and giggles and very colorful language, all said in a choked whisper. I work her to the edge once, and her legs tremble as she falls over it, but I'm entranced and bring her there again, learning all the ways her body reacts and how much she likes it when I move this one way or another, what combinations really get her to curse me out and which ones make her whisper how much she loves me over and over. She's panting when she fists her fingers in my hair and pulls.

"I swear to fuck Dex, if you don't fucking fuck me we're gonna..."

"Mmmmhmmm," I comment, and she falls back again, apparently losing that train of thought. The only reason I even hear the knocking is that I've stopped for a second to give us both a moment to breathe.

There are three little thumps on my door, and then three more. And the whine of "Dadddddddy."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Deb exclaims, and sadly, it has nothing to do with me. She dives under the covers, and I get up with a sigh.

Harrison knocks again, rather persistantly. When I open the door, he looks up at me plaintively. "Daddy, I had a nightmare."

"Oh, Buddy. Come on in," I say, and he follows me back, climbing up on the bed. I sit down on the edge. He looks at the head of the mattress and happily chirps "Hey, Aunt Deb!" Fortunately, he doesn't question her presence in my bed.

Deb snatches the sheet around her a bit more tightly. "Hey, Harrison," she says, way too brightly. If he wasn't a kid, he'd know how fake it is, but he's four, so he just beams back at her. "I had a nightmare about a scary guy with white and gray hair. He was really tall and he scared me and Jaime was there but she got scared. And Daddy was there but he was sad. I miss Cody," he says, completely changing gears. "I miss Astor and Jaime. Can I see them, Daddy? Can you get me some milk, Daddy?"

"Sure thing, kiddo," I say, grateful that I am still in my jeans. I balance him up on my hip like I have since he was a baby, and carry him out to the kitchen, warming up a glass of milk in the microwave. We count the seconds down together, then I carry him back to his room. He gulps it down while still wrapped around my arm, then starts to cry when I try to tuck him in.

"No!" he wails suddenly. "Can't sleep here! The white hair man was in my window. He looked at me so sad. No, I have to sleep in your bed, Daddy. You keep me safe." He presses his face into my forearm.

The occasional pitfalls of being a father. I gather him into my arms again and carry him back, and he already feels drowsy when I reach the threshold of my bedroom. Deb peeks out from the covers on the right side as I walk in, and if she's disappointed or annoyed, she hides it well.

"Need...sleep...in Daddy's room..." Harrison explains, sleepily. I lay him down in the middle of the bed, and she slides out and raids my dresser for a shirt and boxers, which she pulls on quickly.

He's asleep when we both settle down on either side of him. We whisper over him as he dreams between us.

"You're lucky he's so damned cute," she says softly. She reaches over and smooths his hair down behind his ear, and smiles as he shifts and makes a little noise of protest as she pulls her hand away.

* * *

Hannah McKay has never broken into a house for the logical reason- theft. Even in the leanest times, she's always trespassed for some other reason- thought she must admit that this set of skills can come in handy.

It's a little house in Denver; there's a lone ash tree in the front yard crying out for more acidic soil, and not much else to speak of. Two square-shaped patches of clean driveway, free of snow, tell her that the family is out of the house, so she slips in.

She doesn't really know what she expects to find- maybe a shrine, maybe evidence of broken lives, some idea of this other that came before her. She only knew her first name, but seriously, how many Lumens live on this planet? Finding the right one was way too easy.

It's a typical suburban house, and she doesn't find anything that suggests this other blonde once slid a ten inch blade into the chest of two men. There are pictures stuck to the fridge, save the dates for future weddings, groups of smiling thirty-somethings on the sides of mountains or clustered in bars. There's also a sonogram picture, and more photos on the walls in nice frames- newborn portraits, hanging next to a wedding photo. Lumen's husband looks nothing like Dexter- he's tall and lean and dark, and their daughter has beautiful cafe-Au-lait skin and a cluster of tightly wound curls crowns her head. She ghosts down the hall and looks around the nursery, all pink and white, tidy. There are a few dishes in the sink and the bed's unmade, but otherwise, the place is clean. She checks the medicine cabinet and finds a handy prescription bottle, which is almost too easy to tamper with.

* * *

Deb wakes up first. Father and son are both turned facing her, identical looks on their sleeping faces, which would be kind of creepy if it wasn't so hilarious. It's weird to see Dexter asleep so soundly; he's always been a light sleeper before. She wonders if he sleeps deeply now because he doesn't have anything left to hide from her.

She moves into the kitchen, shutting the door softly and grabbing her keys after she sets up the coffee pot and sets it brewing. She needs leave before Jaime gets there and wonders why she's doing the walk of morning after in his clothes.

The drive back to her house is quick; the roads are empty. She checks her neglected mail box for the first time in a few days, and is surprised to see another vellum envelope tucked into the pile of bills. She tosses the pile on her coffee table as she walks in the house, shedding clothes on her way to the shower.

* * *

It's a pleasant surprise to wake up to the smell of fresh coffee, though I am disappointed Deb's gone already. I can't believe I've slept through her leaving. Our little interloper doesn't even stir when I carefully fold him into my arms and tuck him into his own bed before Jaime arrives for her shift. I make it back out of his room just in time to hear her keys jingle in the lock.

She smiles at me, books in arm, as she breezes by and grabs a cup of coffee for herself. She disappears down the hallway and I notice she has a purple bruise on the side of her neck, near where her jaw meets her artery. I comment on it when she returns with my newly roused son, and she flushes scarlet. "Oh, it's just a hickey," she says, covering it self-consciously with her hair.

It seems the new year has brought new developments for everybody.

I'm half way to the station when I realize I left my buzz card for the employee entrance on the counter, so I resign myself to the extra security check and uncomfortable feeling of riding in the visitors' elevator. People rarely come to the police station on a good day, they're usually upset about something. Especially the ones on their way up to the Homicide division.

There's a dour-looking couple holding hands, perhaps in their early sixties. They're too pale to be residents, and their clothes are too heavy for January in Miami. I cough and shuffle my feet a little, hoping to break the awkward silence, which is apparently the wrong thing to do, because then the husband takes me in and correctly deduces that I must be an employee.

"Do you work in forensics? For...the victims?" the wife asks hesitantly, after her husband nudges her and calls her attention to my laminate.

"Yes," I respond in a tone that I intend to end the conversation. However, they're persistent.

"We've got an interview with Detective Simms about our son's... murder." She says the last word like it's the invocation of pure evil. I guess for normal people, it is. "We're the Greene family."

"Well, I'm just the blood guy. I wasn't really involved in the case," I offer.

"The blood guy?" Mr. Green asks blankly.

"I have a Masters in forensic science, and blood spatter analysis is my specialty. The patterns all tell a story, though there wasn't any in your son's case, of course."

"Of course." Mrs. Greene sounds a little crestfallen. A beat passes, and I decide that this is the slowest elevator in the world.

She won't let it go. "Detective Simms seems to think this was somehow gang related, but that can't be right. Our boy- he was the brightest. We got so lucky." Fresh tears spring to her eyes, and her husband puts a calming hand on hers. The doors finally ding open, and I join them in the tortuously long security line. More opportunity for small talk- just fantastic.

We shuffle into place and now it's Mr. Greene's turn to speak. "It all started to go bad when he found out he was adopted," he says heavily, and I turn in his direction as I hop out of my left shoe, putting it in the plastic bin. Ever since Travis Marshall's attempted tableau, our security is more like something devised by the TSA. "We never wanted him to find out- we insisted that we were the family that mattered, after all. But right after, he started doing all this research on the internet, and before we know what, he's sold off his company and moved down here."

I nod.

The wife pipes up again after patting at her cheeks. "He found out something horrible. We adopted him as a newborn, you know. His parents- they were wards of the state, just teenagers themselves. His mother had a drug problem, even young as she was, and she started running around with this boy in her foster home. Because of the charges, they wouldn't grant her emancipation so she could raise him, and all she wanted was to keep her baby out of the system."

I collect my belongings as the guard waves his wand over me, his eyebrow arched as they continue to ramble, undeterred by this awkward situation.

"Well, I imagine she wouldn't want that," I say, grabbing my bin and trying not to make it too obvious that I am rushing as I re-don my affects.

Mr. Green lowers his voice to a stage whisper. "Louis, he was so good with the computer, he found the public records somehow and his original birth certificate," he says.

"Well, I hope Detective Simms is a help to you," I warble, with my most human smile as I slink off to my office, more grateful than ever that I don't always have to wear that mask. The Greenes look crestfallen to see me go.

* * *

"Jaime!" Harrison screeches. He's in the middle of a furious tantrum, and she thinks about calling Dex, but decides to appease him if she can before interrupting him.

"I want my plane! It's in Daddy's room!" He howls. "Cody gave it to me! I miss Cody. I wanna see Cody!"

"Let's work on finding that plane, okay?" she asks, and he sets his face stonily, but nods. She pushes the bedroom door open, and follows him in as he runs over to the far side of the bed and stoops, retrieving the toy from the bottom of the nightstand.

There's a crumpled pair of panties on the edge of the bed, and Jaime looks away. Unfortunately, her gaze lands on the floor, which is decorated at the moment with a shirt and a very familiar pair of jeans.

She'd bought them on sale, but gave them to Deb when she realized they were way too long on her.

What the hell?

* * *

Deb has a productive morning. She arrives at work on time, doesn't text Dexter though she really, really wants to, does reports and paperwork and fills out forms and even cleans out her inbox. The strangest thing she finds is another envelope, this one addressed to Lt. Debra Morgan, Miami Metro Homicide. She tears it open with her letter opener. It's shaped like a sword; a gift from Dexter when she was promoted. Now she's aware of the irony.

This envelope has another rice paper heart, purple this time, and just a date: 3-13-13. She puzzles over it just as Simms bursts in her door.

"Yes, Jake?" she asks. He is humming with energy, the way she herself always felt when she'd discovered some huge, fuck-off clue.

"I just had that interview with the family, that guy who washed up on the beach. Louis Greene," he says. "Lt... this one is _fucked._"

"Oh?" She looks up at him with what she hopes at least resembles interest. Masuka's main achievement in mentoring Louis had seemed to be finally finding someone more creepy than himself, and while she didn't wish the guy dead, she wasn't really surprised that he might be involved in something disgusting and criminal enough to get him killed.

"Louis Greene was adopted, a model student though high school and college. He graduates, sets up his own company... then they tell him he was adopted when the husband needs a kidney and he wants to give one and can't. The kid becomes obsessed, uses all those computer skills to track down the names of his birth parents. Mom was an OD we found in '96, but Dad... Dad was dear old _Brian Moser_."

There's an extremely uncomfortable pause. "Brian...fucking...Moser?" she says softly.

"Fuckin' Ice Truck Killer himself! No wonder the kid got fucked in the head after that! I mean shit, one thing to date him, but to find out your fucking father is one of the most notorious serial killers of the goddamn century?"

"Yeah," she says distantly. _Nephew,_ she says to herself. Dexter had a nephew. And now he's dead, just like the rest of the Moser line.

"Are you okay?" Jake asks.

"Yeah... just... fucking...Jesus. Do you think this could be connected to ITK somehow? Someone who wanted revenge?" _Or a secret to stay a secret?_ she says to herself. _Could Dexter have killed him?_

"No clue, but I'm on it," he says, turning for the door.

"Keep me updated," she calls, waiting it to shut before she snatches up her phone and texts Dexter: _My office asap._

He breezes in a few moments later with an assured swagger that's kind of ridiculously sexy. He gives her a look that pools her resolve in her belly and grabs the shades as he locks the door.

"You needed me?" he says, and the tone he's using is part romance novel, part goofball but it's still doing funny things to her. She comes out from behind the desk and yanks the shades back open, and he looks disappointed as he sinks into her chair.

"What is it?" he says, without the measured seduction in his tone.

"I need you to be honest with me," she says carefully, feeling like she's threading a path over thin ice.

"I always will be honest with you," he responds gently, and looks at her so earnestly that her heart freezes up for a second.

"Did Louis find out what you are? Did you kill him?"

"No, he never knew. But he was killed on my boat. I think Isaak believed we were better friends than we were," he says, and seems as confused as she'd been, mulling over the heart. "Why do you ask?"

"This will be hard," she sighs. "Dex... Louis was Brian's son."

"...What?" he asks. "His..._son_? That's...insane." He sits back in the chair and runs his hands down to his knees, focusing on her desktop as he processes this new information. He stares at the doodles on her blotter until she clears her throat and shoves a report over them.

"Do you think he knew?" he asks finally. She shakes her head. "I don't know... I didn't get the whole story from Simms. He was practically wetting his fucking pants with excitement... you remember how he was with that case."

"Vaguely, I guess. Everyone was pretty preoccupied with that one, if I recall." He gives her a little smile, and she comes around, pushes the other chair next to his, and throws her arm around his shoulder, pulling him close, and he sinks sideways into her hug. Whatever about the fucking blinds.


	7. seven: Skin Deep

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"Skin Deep"

_We hide many secrets beneath our skin. I have been known to dissect human scum in search of what created their monstrocities- as though the line of a tendon, a fractured bone, or a yellowed deposit of fat will whisper the truth to me. I never found anything of that nature in my numerous and frequent teardowns of the human body. My approach has been all wrong, though. I can say that with confidence and introspection now. Whatever honesty I see left in this world is in __**her**_ _eyes._

I wake up alone, three days after Deb and I nearly slept together. It's finally Friday, and the weekend cannot come quickly enough. But there's still a full day of work ahead of me. I rise and shower, then check my messages. There's just one quick one from Deb, a single word: _TFGIF. _I assume the extra f stands for 'fuck'.__

Jaime arrives right on time, as usual, though she's been acting weird for a few days now. She barely meets my eyes as she comes in the door, bustling around with extra noise and greeting Harrison with a little too much enthusiasm. Today, at least, it's warranted, though.

"Let me know when you get to Orlando," I say, kissing my son on the cheek as I load the last of his bags into the back of my SUV. Jaime's driving it up for their long weekend with Astor and Cody. He smiles back at me. "Of course, Daddy!" He climbs into the back seat and quickly buckles himself in.

"I was asking Jaime, but you make sure you get on the phone, too, mister," I tease him, and he sticks his tongue out at me. He learned that from Deb.

Jaime slipped on sunglasses the second we were out of the apartment, so her gaze is a mystery. "Of course," she says absently, checking the mirrors and adjusting the seat. "Do you want my keys?" she asks again.

"No, Deb's going to take care of me," I answer, and I see a flash of some distaste in her features. If I hadn't been a professional at reading human expressions as a means of survival, I might have missed it, but I am what I am. It vanishes fleetingly, and she slaps a smile on. "That's nice of her, what a great sister." There's a tiny inflection on the final word. "But seriously, hang on to them for me. With my luck, I'll lose them." She hands them out the window.

"All right," I agree. After a moment, she takes her leave and my vehicle out of the parking lot and onto the street, and I wave at Harrison as they disappear from sight.

Now I can have a weekend to myself. Well, not entirely to myself, of course. I head back inside and start to straighten up, rather unnecessarily, and manage to load the dishwasher and get my sheets in the wash before my phone starts buzzing. It's dispatch, and there's a fresh body clear across town. It looks like I'll need Jaime's car after all.

On a more positive note, it's about a block from Angel's cafe, so at least there's the possibility of a good lunch.

* * *

Jaime waits until she's about about ten minutes down the road before she starts calling people. Her discovery of Deb's jeans and panties in Dexter's bedroom, and the disturbing implications they suggest, have been festering in the back of her mind like a disease, but she couldn't really let them run too far in her head, because after all, she still had to face him every day. But now with the promise of four days without seeing him, she feels safe enough to at least broach the subject with someone.

She tries Quinn first. It rings and rings, but there's no answer.

She thinks about calling Deb, mostly because she wants some innocent answer, maybe even to hear that one of her friends borrowed the jeans and then banged her brother. Sure, Dexter didn't seem to be dating anyone, but that Hannah woman had breezed into and out of his life with barely a blip on her radar, so she could hardly say she knew everything about every moment of Dexter's life outside the house. And that's the logical explanation...because seriously... they're siblings. Who the hell would even think of doing that to a family member? Especially two attractive, intelligent family members with no lack of opportunity to date?

She calls Angel, and he answers on the first ring. "Yes?" he asks.

"Hey, brother," she greets him. "Are you busy?" She glances over at the next lane, makes sure it's clear, then merges.

"Is that supposed to be a joke?" he asks, and she can hear the usual noises of the restaurant in the background. "Yes, it's always busy. But I have time to step away for a moment. Hang on." He puts his hand over the receiver, but she still hears him bark out some orders to what sounds like a busboy. After a moment, he comes back on the line. "Sorry about that," he says. "So what did you need?"

"There's something weird going on with Dexter," she says, and he pauses, then says, "Did he hit on you? Because after this whole Hannah thing..."

"No, no, nothing like that," Jaime assures him. "It's... awkward. And complicated."

"Well, you should talk to Debra about it. She's the expert on all things Dexter," he says, and he already sounds less interested. She struggles internally with what to say next, but he continues his train of thought helpfully. "You know, he's probably going through some rough stuff. The whole thing with McKay, and then... well, he found out something about his family, Maria told me about it before she...died." He stops for a moment, then composes himself. "I'm guessing he didn't tell you," he finishes.

"Tell me what?" she asks.

"Dexter recently found out that his brother was a guy who we hunted down for being a notorious serial killer... the Ice Truck Killer. It was even more awkward, because Debra almost married the guy."

"What do you mean, _his_ brother? How would that not be her brother too?" She's lost at this point.

"Well, Dexter and Debra aren't really brother and sister. They were just raised together, they're not blood. He was adopted by the Morgans when he was a little younger than Harrison is now."

"Oh," she says lamely. She wonders why she never knew this, but then again, his personal history had never exactly come up in conversations about lunchtime, flash cards, and potty training.

"I guess that explains some things," she says, wanting to get off the phone and stew over this revelation some more on her own. "Look, I'm headed into traffic."

"You're on the way to Orlando, right?" He lets some concern slip into his voice. "Well, be careful."

"I will be, Angel," she promises, and laughs when he says "_Pórtate bien_!" in a pseudo-stern voice before ending the call.

* * *

I get to the scene before Deb and all the rest of them, since I manage to avoid a big accident on the freeway. I flash my laminate at the uniforms holding the crime scene line from curious neighbors and bystanders, and make my way through the well-decorated, expensive house out to the backyard. The body of a middle-aged man is sprawled on the concrete in a rather undignified pose, face-down. It looks like he fell from the second story of the house, which has a rather low railing. I stoop down next to the body and start taking pictures.

Vince is the next one to show up, though he scowls when he sees that I've beaten him there. He heads into the house and starts documenting the conditions of the porch and taking photos up there as well. The maid was the one who found the body, and she's speaking rapid-fire Spanish to one of the patrol officers next to the pool. She mentions how he liked to drink heavily, and my interest in this particular death wanes quickly.

I hear a familiar throat clear behind me. "So did he look before he leapt?" Deb asks sarcastically. I shrug. "If he looked, I guess he liked the view well enough to let it be the last thing he saw," I remark, examining the impact site of where his face made friends with the patio. It's a gruesome enough scene, but not quite as bloody as it should have been. I lean in closer and take in the sight.

"Well, that's something. I think he was dead already when he fell. Or I should say...when his body was thrown. The angle of his limbs suggest a degree of rigor mortis had already set when he landed, and the localized pooling here-" I motion to the halo of blood around his shattered skull- "indicates that the heart had already stopped pumping a while before the impact occurred."

"Great, so now we just have to figure out why someone tossed him off the railing," she intones darkly, and I bite back a little smile. "After he was already dead." She seems rather frustrated, and a touch flustered. The coroner arrives just then to collect the remains, and we all head back to the station. As we head back to our cars, Deb stops me.

"I went to your place and you weren't there... I was a little worried," she says. "I thought we were riding together until Jaime and Harrison get back on Tuesday."

"I borrowed her car for today, but I can leave it in the garage at the station," I answer, and she looks at me and then away. "At least until Monday night. I'm sure it will be safe there."

"I'm sure," she says, and gets in her own car. While waiting for the insurance check to come through, she's still got the rental, though it seems to be growing on her. She smiles as she passes me on the highway.

There are butterflies in my stomach for most of the ride back. I decide to skip lunch.

* * *

The waiting room for the laboratory is cold and there are a bunch of harried mothers with crying children and a few other profoundly uncomfortable men like Vince. He reads a copy of Oprah's magazine from 2009 and sighs, hoping that they'll hurry up already. Hell, he could have processed this test and had the sample digesting already at this rate. Which was something he'd suggested, but Amelia had said they needed to find a neutral lab to assure the results were accurate. But really, Maddy wasn't her boyfriend's kid, and Vince was the only other guy who could be the father, so it was actually just a formality at this point.

Amelia hadn't told her boyfriend the truth yet. He thinks back to that conversation. Maddy had been bouncing around across the table from him, on her side of the booth. She gave him a sunny smile and went back to peeking over the edge of the seat to spy on the couple behind them.

"I only realized it when I found some old medical files, and I read that my boyfriend was B positive. Maddy and I are both O positive."

"And so am I," he sighed. "If those records were accurate, there's no way she could be his."

Amelia motions to him. "Ergo, she's yours."

"There was nobody else? And why were you sleeping around if you had a boyfriend, anyway?"

"We had a big fight right before I left that weekend for the conference. You and I hooked up, I got home expecting him to have moved out, but he was still there and he was so sorry and we slept together within a few hours. You and I used a condom, he and I didn't...I really didn't think it was enough of a chance to worry about-"

"Excuse me," a voice interrupts. An old lady gives them a warm smile. "I just wanted to let you know, you're a beautiful family!"

"Vincent Masuka?" the receptionist calls, breaking him from the memory.

He barely suppresses another sigh.

* * *

When the day finally draws to a close, Deb collects Dex from the lab and they head back to his apartment. She fights jitters and nerves the entire time, which is silly- it's _Dex_ for fuck's sake- but at the same time, this is huge and life-changing and crazy and...

She decides to just go with instinct. It has served her well enough so far.

Deb parks the car and locks it after he grabs his stuff from the back seat, following him up the staircase quietly. He unlocks the door and they slip into the empty apartment, and he throws down his briefcase as she pulls off her blazer and hangs it unceremoniously on the couch. An awkward silence hangs in the air.

She keeps her eyes down, aware of his movements as he paces into the kitchen and yanks open the fridge. She hears him call her, and finally looks up when he says "Hey- Deb. I got steaks, is that all right? Deb?"

"Yeah, sounds good." She picks at her nails.

The refrigerator door shuts abruptly, and he grabs her arm, startling her. "If you don't want to do this-" he says, and she's surprised to hear that he sounds shy, almost.

Debra's always been one who favored direct action to sitting around talking about her feelings and all that horseshit. He still has his hand on her arm. So she throws her insecurities aside, focuses on how this is Dexter, the boy who became a man before her, who has always been her staunchest defender and her oldest friend. She reaches out with her opposite hand and takes hold of his arm for a moment, squeezing it and looking up into his eyes. She sees the answers to a dozen unspoken questions in them, and then slams her own shut as she leans up and pulls his head down to hers in a deep kiss.

Their bodies entwine of their own accord, and he sets the forward momentum that sends them toward the couch. She kicks off her shoes along the way, and he follows her lead, surfacing only to strip off his shirts in one careless motion, ripping off the buttons in his haste. She tugs off her tank top and bra in one yank, and sheds her pants and panties with another. All she wants is skin and all of him, so she surges forward and grips his belt, opening it with a flick of her wrist. She pulls the button of his khakis free and slides down his zipper. He kicks them off as they ease down his thighs and makes sure his boxers follow their trajectory.

His hands are sliding freely now across her chilled skin, and she shivers. She falls back onto the cushions with a bounce and he catches her with his smooth, tanned hands around her slim waist, just above her hips. He lands with more control, putting his knees outside of hers one at a time as he leans down to catch her in a sweet, open-mouthed kiss, his fingers ghosting back up across her ribs and teasing her breasts. Her pulse is so fast beneath her wrists; her heartbeat feels like a gong in her chest.

His skin is warm and smooth under her palms as she caresses his back, tracing the dip of where the muscles join his spine and create the sharp angle of his hip, the curve of his ass. His lips leave hers and trace her jawbone, and he starts to nip at her neck and makes it up to her earlobe, where she really starts to squirm. When he slips a hand between them to dip into her core, she bites back a scream. While what he's doing feels awesome, she only lets him proceed for a moment, then lets her legs fall open at a wider angle. Her hands slide down to his hips, and she yanks him down like gravity, giving him an unmistakable message. He gets it loud and clear.

* * *

I know what it feels like to drown. My lungs burned; my whole body ached with the need for oxygen. It was nothing compared to this. Deb pulls me down and I feel her feet slide down my calves, wrapping herself around me as I push down to the correct angle. I slide into her and kiss her mouth at the same time; the sensation is incredible. My brain has left the building; all I feel are purely physical things. Heat, constriction, silky wetness around me. She makes a noise deep in her throat and my eyes flutter open, and I look into her eyes. That incredible connection we have had to one another is like a live wire, sparking between us as I move, gentle and tentative at first, trying to let her adjust and not hurt her. But it takes all of my control to not buck wildly against her- and that control vanishes when she grabs my neck and uses her calves to push me even deeper, and breaks our kiss to growl "_Faster_."

She certainly doesn't have to ask twice.

She arches up into our rhythm as I grind furiously against her, blinded by the white-hot light that seems to be running over my nerves. Her motions get wilder and she stills me for a moment as she comes apart beneath me for the first time, then keeps me going as she does again.

I scoop her into my arms and bury myself into her completely, seizing her shoulder with my teeth as she bites mine when I fall over the edge into release. We lay in silence and stillness for a minute until I feel something tickling my collarbone. I support myself on one arm as my other hand comes up to my shoulder, and when I pull it back, there's redness on my fingers. She _drew blood._

She looks at my hand and wails. "Oh, fuck! I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me..." I wipe my hand on the back side of the couch and smile down at her.

"Uh, me?" I deadpan, and she pushes my shoulders up, grinning at my corny joke. "Not as sorry now," she teases as we rise from the couch. "Come on, I need a shower. You do too." Her eyes drop past my waist. "And that better not be a one-trick pony, old man." My body forms its own answer surprisingly quickly in response.

I follow her into the lavatory, and feel pretty accomplished that we only manage to rip the shower curtain in the next hour. It's enough that I have to replace a blood-stained couch.

Though it was utterly fucking _worth_ it.

* * *

Homicide is the last floor on the mail guy's route through the building; it's just before quitting time, the last day before the weekend. He pushes the cart leisurely, flipping through and ordering the packages by mailbox number. He makes sure to sort the Morgan's mail properly, because the girl one has cussed him out more times than he can count for getting a blood report in her mailbox. The guy, Dexter, never says anything to him, so the mail guy hasn't got an opinion of him, though he does appreciate the occasional donut that comes his way.

He slips Dexter's mail- a forensic supply catalog, some envelopes from various law enforcement agencies, and something via Airmail- into his box, then moves over to Debra Morgan's. There's less for her- a few letters, and a postcard. It's a weird looking thing- a glossy image on one side, maybe some modern art piece? It has a photograph of a gravestone on the right side, and a broken, burned-out light bulb on the other side, divided by a thick black line. The reverse is addressed to Debra Morgan, but there's no return address.

He slides it through the slot and finishes the rest of the mail before heading home.


	8. eight: That Still Small Voice

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"That Still Small Voice"

_The past is something that, according to popular opinion, tends to haunt us. In my experience, that's not exactly true. The past isn't some spectre, some ghost that pops out at me when I least expect it. No, for me, the past has only shed light and truth, and sometimes even offered a warning for the present. _

"It probably would have been smarter to do this in Harrison's shower," I mumble as I grab her hip with one hand and trail my other along her back, smoothing it along her ribs and grasping her breast. She grinds her hips back against mine and asks "_What_?"

"You know, it's slippery... this is kind of- _dangerous_," I reflect, even as I bend down to kiss her neck and punctuate my point with a thrust. "We put those little no-slip ducks in his tub..."

She arches her back and pulls away, spinning around to look me in the eye. "If you're thinking about ducks right now, Dexter..." she says haughtily, "we're not doing this right." She takes a handful of my shower curtain and yanks it down. Little pieces of the plastic curtain hooks snap and fly off in all directions. She tosses it on the floor, shuts off the water, and pulls me out after her, pinning me to the floor with her slight weight and centering herself over me. She sinks down onto my body with a long sigh of pleasure, biting her bottom lip, and I quit thinking about adhesive ducks.

* * *

At some point, Deb and I find our way to my bed, and drift off to sleep. When I wake, she's curled up against me, her lips slightly parted as she breathes deeply and slowly. I take a moment to look at her, reaching over to loop a strand of her hair across her shoulder to fall back behind her neck. She doesn't stir or wake as I roll carefully over and lift myself off the mattress.

I can see daylight through the slits of the blinds, so I pull on a pair of boxers and walk barefooted through the open bedroom door to the refrigerator, pulling out the orange juice and gulping it straight from the carton. Deb would be proud...

I brush my teeth and dress as quietly as I can, letting her enjoy her rest. I greet the morning and head down to the mailboxes to check my mail. I usually let a few days go between checking it; it's tucked away from my side of the building, and it's kind of a pain. I slip the key in the lock and turn it, swinging open the little metal door and revealing a sizable pile of papers and envelopes. I ease them out of the box and into my hand, shuffling thorough them, tossing away the coupons and political mailers. Soon, there's just bills, what looks like a card for Harrison, and a thin mailer from a lawyer I don't recognize. I carry it all back up to the apartment, passing my elderly neighbor as she walks her Yorkie down the steps. She smiles at me warmly, and I grin back. The dog snarls, and she scolds him, apologizing: "Oh, Pepper has always hated men, I'm sorry, dear."

"No problem," I answer easily.

I slide back into my home, pushing the door shut behind me with a little gust of humid air. It's enough to wake Deb though, and I hear her groan the same way I have a hundred times when she first struggles back to consciousness. She comes out of the bedroom, hair messy, wearing one of my button-up bowling shirts and her limbs stretching. She goes for the fridge and I grab her a glass; she pops open the carton and gives me a look that says "Seriously?" as she drinks. I don't think she's ever been so beautiful to me.

* * *

Thoroughly exhausted, Debra collapses into a sleep so deep she assumes it will be dreamless. But it is not. No, for whatever reason- maybe it's sleeping in his bed, surrounded by his scent, the heavy warmth of his arms- she dreams of Dex.

Of all the times and occasions to remember of, to dream about, she ends up at his wedding. All of her colleagues are there at the fuzzy edges, Anton too; but it's Dexter who is in sharp relief when she glances up from her glass of champagne. She'd been sitting off to the side, just watching everyone move around her, melancholy without really knowing why. Maybe it was the subtle swell under Rita's gown, the circle around Dexter's ring finger; whatever it was, she was happy for them, but their happiness was a reminder of what she would probably never have.

She swirled the alcohol in a slow circle in the crystal flute. And then a hand closed over hers, stilling the motion. She glanced up to find Dexter standing before her.

He reached out and took the glass, setting it down on the empty chair beside her. Then he took both of her hands in his and pulled her upright. "Come on and dance, little sister," he intoned playfully, and she'd been so surprised, she'd let him take her with him. They danced, his hand at her waist, and she laughed and called him a _fuckin' tard_ as he dipped her low and pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. Then Astor and Cody rushed over, and she found herself twirling with her nephew's feet on her own while Dex did the same with his new step daughter.

She'd wondered then if Harry would have watched them and smiled. Now she wonders if he'd look at them with understanding- or horror.

She startles awake with the sound of the front door opening.

* * *

"Dad," Auri whines. "It's just unfair to make me start work on a Sunday. Whatever happened to 'the day of rest'?"

"Jesus didn't run a restaurant," Angel says solemnly. "Besides, we don't open until 1. Plenty of time to get to the first morning service. You've gotta learn the ropes somehow, baby, and it's a good, short shift. You'll be done by 6."

"And I've gotta wear these _clothes." _She holds up the uniform in apparent despair. "Why can't I wear shorts?" His fourteen year old daughter is growing up way too fast for his good.

He gives her a fatherly head shake. "You can't wear shorts for the same reason nobody else can. Angel's is a safe place to bring your family, not some little sexy taco stand. Black pants, white polo shirt. I can't have my staff think you get special treatment just because you're my kid. Bad enough I'm letting you waitress before it's technically legal. Now go change." Auri runs to the restroom, and Angel goes to the front door, very surprised to find that Quinn is waiting outside of the wooden and glass doors of the cafe.

"Hey, man," Quinn says, walking in. Angel gives his former partner a questioning look as he follows him in, checking his watch. It's only 12:15. When his busboy breezes in a moment later, followed by his head waitress, he greets them each with a nod, grabbing a rag and wiping down the table that Quinn's settled himself into.

"And what are you doing at my restaurant almost an hour before it opens on a Sunday?" Angel asks, moving the salt and pepper shakers. Quinn helpfully lifts the napkin holder out of the way as he wipes. He sighs as he puts it down. "Look, Angel, I'm not gonna bullshit you. I'm here about Jaime."

"What?!" Angel demands, dropping the sugar shaker and sitting down in the chair he's just cleaned. "Is she okay? Was there an accident?!" he exclaims.

"No, buddy, nothing like that! Calm down, bro," Quinn says soothingly, grasping the larger man's shoulder in his palm. "Look, we've been... dating, all right?"

"You came here to tell me that?" Angel laughs weakly. "You think my wait staff is blind, _conyo_? They tell me everything. But she hasn't said anything, I just assumed she was shamed to be seen with you." He pushes the spilled sugar into a napkin and crumples it up.

Quinn laughs. "Yeah, I'm surprised, too," he admits. "Anyway, I was gonna ask you if it was okay if I asked her to take a trip with me. I've got a family reunion in Boston, right around Saint Patrick's day. I know it's kinda far off, but still- I'd love to have her with me, meet my gran and my ma, my sister-" He fidgets.

"You never even introduced _Deb_ to your family," Angel says. "Shit, you're that serious about Jaime?" He stares the younger man down, with mixed amazement and disbelief. Quinn's response is almost shy, a slight pink twinge coloring his hollow cheeks. He picks at a scratch in the wooden table and won't meet Angel's eyes.

"Serious as a fuckin' heart attack."

* * *

I slide my finger down the edge of the envelope from the lawyer, yanking it open. There's two pieces of paper inside- a brief letter, and a check. I read the letter first. It explains that this is my share of my aunt's estate, and hopes it finds me well, encouraging me to contact the office if I have any additional questions regarding her estate.

The check is for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I almost drop it. My hands begin to shake.

Deb notices my reaction and crosses the kitchen to me, pulling the letter from my grasp. She scans it, then peers at the check and says "Holy mother of fuck. Is that _real_?"

"I think so," I say, and my voice is not my own. "Jesus Christ, Dexter!" she exclaims, and I can't tell if she's angry or shocked or just excited. "Who was this Margaret Moser chick? Your grandma?"

"Aunt," I answer distantly. "My aunt, she found out about Brian and I just before she died. Cancer, apparently. She lived overseas, married well. No heirs."

"I'd say," Debra mutters, turning the letter over and back again. "What are you gonna do with it? Quit Miami Metro? Send Harrison to Harvard? Buy a yacht?" She sits down on my couch. "I think I'd buy a yacht, personally. A really big one."

"I've got a boat," I respond. "And boats are terrible investments." Her other suggestions, though logical, also aren't what I've got in mind. No, another plan entirely is forming in my mind. But for the moment, I do think we should celebrate.

"Come on," I say, switching gears. "Let's go by your place so you can put on something nice and we can have dinner at Angel's."

"Well," she purrs thoughtfully, "You need to bring clothes to change into too, and we might as well shower while we're there..."

"Excellent idea," I agree, wrapping my arms around her waist and kissing her softly. She leans into my touch.

* * *

Deb drives them to the station after they take a lengthy and naughty shower at her place, since she feels bad that she went an entire day without stopping by, and she doesn't want to be overwhelmed the next morning. The uni at the door just raises his eyebrows when he takes in her hip-hugging jeans and silk blouse, the stiletto heels that make her just a little taller than Dexter. He's just wearing his own jeans and a nicer shirt than he'd usually wear to work, and some loafers because he only has a couple of pairs of shoes to choose from anyway. He's such a _guy _sometimes.

"I'm just gonna check my work account and my mailbox," she assures him, and he nods, following her to the mailbox and pulling out a short stack of notices as she removes the usual amount of work-related debris. "Collier county sent over a request for me to come analyze some spatter in some remote cabin, might be a lead in one of their cold cases" he says, and she glances up at him and says "Oh?"

"Yeah, apparently they haven't got a blood guy at the moment, I guess Frank retired-"

She interrupts him with a freaked-sounding little gasp. "What the _fuck_?" She flips a postcard back and forth. "What is this?"

He takes it from her, and his eyes go wide. "It's a light bulb and a grave stone... a burned-out light bulb..." His voice trails off distantly, and he darts to her office with Deb on his heels. He types the access code to her computer and she wonders how the hell he knows it, but reserves her pondering for that fact for another time. He types "Lumen Pierce" into the search engine, and they wait for a long moment while the results page loads.

The entire first page is obituaries. He blows out an agonized breath, shielding his eyes with his hands, and she can't tell if he's filled with sorrow or rage. Because all of the announcements tell a tale of a tragic car accident, and an accidental overdose. The whole story is a little too familiar.

* * *

It's a small funeral, so she dresses in black, complete with a veil, and stands over a nearby grave, then kneels out of sight as she places a wreath of white roses on the tombstone of a stranger. She listens intently as the pastor clears her throat and begins the graveside service.

The casket is white, and raised up above the earth. There's a nice piece of AstroTurf to act as a barrier between the disturbed soil and the mourner's formal attire, and they sit on folding chairs, nodding formally as the woman in black at the podium reminds them all of the life of the late Lumen Pierce. Her husband, hunched with grief in a suit he's only ever before worn to weddings, holds their daughter. She curls into his arms, wearing the same dress she was in for their Christmas portrait. No one had time to go out and buy them something more fitting for this terrible occasion.

"She was a loving wife, an excellent and doting mother," the pastor says, wiping at her eyes. She hadn't known the young woman personally, but the tragedy still moves her. "And she leaves behind a family that will always miss her guidance." An older blond woman bows her head even more deeply and reaches over to grasp the husband's hand. Their observer assumes that this must be Lumen's mother. The granddaughter crawls over into her lap and lays her head on the woman's shoulder, and she hugs her tightly.

_I bet they won't mention she was also a murderer_, Hannah thinks. _Because if you die and no one knows your crimes, you're an assumed to be an innocent._

She waits through the entire service, watches them lower the casket into the cold, wet ground. The mourners slowly wander off, though the husband is last. When he finally clears off, she patiently waits for her opportunity. She pops up and walks down the pathway with a hurried pace, her wreath in hand. One of the groundskeepers sees her and holds out his hand.

"I'm late," she sighs dramatically. "We were friends, Lumen and I. I just wanted to leave this to decorate her grave, is that okay?"

"Sure, sure," the man agrees, taking the wreath. Across the wreath is a purple ribbon that reads "Loyal Friend."


	9. nine: Chupacabra

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"Chupacabra"

Angel leans across the bar and pushes two glasses toward Deb and I. We both give him skeptical looks, and he actually arches his eyebrow in response. "New drinks, on the house. My own concoction. I call it... the _Chupacabra_."

"The Mexican goat sucker?" Deb asks, half-laughing. I turn my puzzled gaze to her, and she punches my shoulder. "Hey, fuck you. I like watching Monster Hunters on Syfy." Always the more willing of the two of us, she tilts the glass back and slams it. And chokes. She leans heavily into me, and I pat her back. Now Angel's the one who's laughing. Once she manages to catch her breath, she sputters, "What the fuck is _IN_ that, Angel?!"

"Red bull, grenadine, and Jack Daniels," he answers. I take a careful sip and grimace. "That tastes like it _would_ be coming out of the wrong end of a goat," I remark, and Angel shakes his head. "Amateurs," he says, walking off to tend to his other paying customers.

I have never felt great comfort in the presence of alcohol, but neither Deb or I really know how to react to Lumen's death. Hannah's disappearance and Lumen's murder are obviously connected, and failing my fallback response, which until lately would have involved a butcher knife and a bone saw, I instead find myself on a bar stool beside _her_.

I don't know what to call this new thing, this evolution of our relationship. She's not my sister, she's more than a friend; girlfriend sounds too childish and lover sounds like it belongs on the back of a bodice-ripper.

She's just my... Deb.

I know I can't drink much more, though; I plan on driving out to the crime scene in Collier county in the morning. So after Deb takes another few shots, I collect our belongings and head for her rental car, careful to get her safely tucked into the passenger side. As soon as I back out of the packing lot, her hand finds my thigh and starts to creep upward at a steady pace. I flick my eyes off the road and meet her hungry gaze. Maybe this is something teenagers do; I was never a normal teenager. Come to think of it, neither was she. In any case, I spot an empty field near an abandoned restaurant, and roll down the gravel drive with the headlights dimmed. I park the rental and before I can even unclip the seat belt, she dives for my belt buckle. I distract her long enough to pull her into a searing kiss.

Somehow, between me stretching myself out across the front seats, we manage to find a satisfying rhythm with her astride my body, my hands slipped under her bra and blouse to twist at her nipples. She's wild and even more vocal than she was in my apartment; I guess she was afraid of pissing off my neighbors. Personally, I don't give a damn about them. Even the nice ones.

She whimpers when one of my palms leaves her breast, but I quickly find her core, just above where we are joined, and I stroke her with the fluttery, quick movements I've noticed she likes. Her pace becomes frantic and she throws her hand over the driver's side headrest, which clicks back several degrees in protest. Her other hand grips the dash as she rocks her hips against mine, creating a sweet friction, and I lose control, burying my face in her shoulder as I buck up into her.

As we untangle ourselves, she notices, not without dismay, that we've left a sizable reminder of our tryst on the passenger seat's leather cover, and the headrest appears to be broken.

"Well, I might as well buy the damn thing now," she mutters.

* * *

I leave early the next morning, before she's even up, calling a taxi to bring me in to work and then borrowing a car from the motor pool. I've got a good two hour drive ahead of me with traffic, and I take the time to call Jaime and check up on her weekend with Harrison in Orlando. She reports that all is going well, and she'll be back tomorrow, so I make a mental note to make sure the apartment is clean by the time they're due back.

Once I've arrived in Collier county, I stop into the local sheriff's office. The sheriff himself is in, a grizzled old man in his early 60's. His neatly trimmed grey mustache twitches as he takes in my bowling shirt and khakis. He gives a grunt and digs in his desk drawer for a box, pulling out a set of keys and handing them over. "You'll need these, too," he says, and opens a file cabinet, yanking a thick manilla folder from the drawer. I flip it open and find the initial crime scene photos and reports- three Latino males, stab and bullet wounds on two, and evidence of a brutal beating with the third. The sheriff clears his throat awkwardly. "Normally, I'd send a deputy with you, but we're short staffed today, a lot of people out with that damned swine or bird or horseshit flu, whatever it is this year."

"I'll be alright," I say easily, flipping the folder shut and taking my leave. I smile at the old dispatcher on my way out, and she gives me a wink.

The drive takes me from the interstate to a rural highway, twisting through the backwoods and swamps to the west side of the state. I pass endless numbers of ramshackle shacks and broken old trailers, caved in fruit and t-shirt stands that must have predated the interstate's opening. I reflect on how little I used this valuable portion of the state when I selected kill rooms- virtually a treasure trove, and lament belatedly now that it seems I'm out of business.

Finally, my GPS sends me down a state road for a dozen miles, and then a dirt road for a final five. The scene I've been called out to document and analyze has the spatter remains of a triple homicide, just as promised- and as I read the file more thoroughly, gulping down my iced coffee, it reveals that this is the suspected site of a drug dealer's punishment for some accounting oversights on the part of some of his runners. Despite the remote location, the cabin is actually well kept, though it is very old, a relic of the fifties. The blood streaked on the log walls and linoleum-covered floor is at least two or three months old, faded to a dull rust color, and I spritz it back to life to collect the required samples for the lab. I pull out the photos of the original crime scene to begin the slow process of reconstructing each death, setting out my box of pins and spool of embroidery thread. Like a spider's web, the trajectory of each droplet in the spray retraces it's path back to the central area from which it gushed. The silence around the cabin is broken only by the occasional lilt of birdsong outside. I work slowly and methodically, lost in the process for at least two hours.

As the day begins to heat up, close to one o'clock, I head out to my car and grab a couple of bottles of lukewarm water from my trunk, re-hydrating myself as quickly as I can.

I photograph my handiwork as I complete the first two victim's positions, taking notes as I progress toward my final report. My phone buzzes once with a text message; just Deb saying hello. I answer her with a few words, assuring her I'll be back at the precinct before she leaves at 5, and from there, we'll decide what to do with our final evening alone before Harrison and Jaime's return.

Just as I put the finishing touches on the final set of lines, I finally decide I can't hold it any longer, since the water has caught up with my bladder. I can't use the only bathroom in the cabin; I might disturb trace evidence. I open the narrow front door with a long protest from the rusty hinges and head for the treeline. I pull my phone from my pocket, staring down at it and waiting for Deb's response. I'm not really paying much attention as I stomp through the leaf litter and several dozen summer's worth of pine needles on the forest floor, lost in the little glowing screen. I start to compose a message to Jaime, asking her to make sure she takes a new photo of Harrison with Cody and Astor for the frame in his room.

If I had been paying better attention, or wearing footwear more appropriate to the location, it might not have happened. But it does happen. I feel a sharp jab to my foot, and immediately afterward a dusty-sounding rattle begins to rustle in the brush. My phone disappears into the tall grass, and all I see of the snake is a quick movement off to my right, as the leaves bend in it's wake. Everything stops moving just as rapidly, and I'm not sure that it's actually left the area.

"Fuck," I say to no one. I stoop down and examine the wound, which is to the very top of my foot, the only part exposed by my dock shoes. Already, the twin punctures are red and angry-looking, and a throbbing begins. I try to calm myself, though panic is roaring through my mind.

I begin to lunge for my phone, but stop out of fear of being bitten on the hand as well. I try to remember what I know about what to do as a first responder, suddenly wishing I'd paid better attention to the survival first aid refresher meeting I'd had to attend as a chaperone for Cody's young sailors club. I kick off the shoe to keep it from constricting my soon to be swollen foot, and begin to hobble back towards the cabin before thinking again and turning back to the grass. I have no other way to get in contact with civilization, my logical mind reminds me. I end up stumbling and fall face-first into brush, feeling branches cut my face and hoping to hell that the snake is gone as I blindly search with one hand for my phone. The other slides down my leg with the vague idea of trying to stop the blood flow from reaching my heart.

Everything fades gently to black just a moment later.

* * *

Dexter closes his eyes for a moment, and is out like a light. The snake is long gone, and the cabin is just ten yards away. Flies buzz and land on him; the songbirds sing on, oblivious. With some twisted irony, his phone- five feet from his twitching hand- lights up with an incoming text message. It's a flirtatious message from the female Morgan, asking him to bring coffee when he returns to the station.

* * *

Something yanks on my fingers, and I startle awake as I look up into the eyes of my brother Brian. "Nap time's over, Dexter," he says teasingly. I try to struggle to my feet, but my leg is numb from the knee down. I fall twice before he's nice enough to give me a hand, dropping my fingers as he walks ahead. I hop forward, toward him.

Brian is perpetually thirty-five in my illusions of him, younger than me, now. His angled, handsome face is open and welcoming, radiating the kindness I remember he'd once had, before we marinated in Mom's remains for three days. His red button-down shirt is ruffled by the breeze as he reaches backward toward me. He looks like he needs a hair cut.

"Just a few feet further," he encourages.

"Since when are you this helpful?" I ask. Usually Brian's pushing me to be homicidal, not helping me survive. He makes a 'tsk, tsk' as I get close enough to grab his hand. "Baby brother," he admonishes. "I'm just doing what family does. Family _helps_ each other. They don't abandon and reject each other." Something new colors his face and twists his features into a sinister smile, and suddenly he shoves me forward, somehow behind me.

"How are my sloppy seconds, prick?" he snarls. "That bitch you chose over me, the fake sister you killed me to protect. You killed me, Dexter. Your own _flesh_, your own _blood_. Do you think she compares us, the way we are in bed? I imagine she can't help but have a few notes...maybe you should ask her to _share_." He gives a final kick, centering it squarely on my back, and I lose consciousness again.

* * *

The branch beneath Dexter's hand snaps as he falls forward, heading away from the cabin and deeper into the woods in the height of his confusion. The trees offer handholds that he's used to pull himself along as he hops off, forsaken and alone, before collapsing.

* * *

Debra straightens her office and attacks the piles of paperwork that await her, mundane things that keep her focused and not thinking like a schoolgirl about Dexter and the development of their new, changed relationship. And while those thoughts are delightful and hopeful and a dozen other sappy-ass, romantic words, she's also troubled, deeply disturbed by the death of Lumen.

Deb knows that without evidence, there's nothing she can do to bring Hannah to justice- and she needs to find the evil bitch to accomplish that. She calls over to the team that's chasing her, getting squat diddly and is told that she may be traveling with a fake ID and may have altered her appearance, so their search has hit a few brick walls. _No shit,_ she thinks. But because Hannah hasn't used a tangible weapon to commit her crimes, she seems to be lower on their priority list. It's frustrating to an extreme. She wishes Dex were here, if only to bounce ideas off of. She types him a text that may include a few risque interpretations and hits the send button just as Vince ducks his head in to her office.

"Hey LT," he says cordially. "Have you got a minute?"

"Yeah," she says quickly, dropping her phone back into her purse as though it's burned her and trying not to look like she's got something to hide. If Masuka was a detective, he'd pick up on her nerves, but he's not so he doesn't. Instead he drops a catalog on her desk.

"Wrapping paper?" she asks, completely bewildered.

"Yeah... Maddy's in a dance company, and they are doing a fundraiser for some new costumes, you know how fast kids grow..." He takes a moment to almost look embarrassed.

"A dance company? She's not even three, is she?" She pages through the sheets, eyeballing the glossy samples.

"Well, you know. Gotta be a Tiger parent, get her started early." He shrugs, and she takes a moment to savor how strange it is to see her horn-dog lab guy morph into a loving father with the flick of a switch and a DNA test.

"And her mother...? You started anything back up with her?" She arches an eyebrow and grabs a pen, jotting down one of the codes onto the order form. There's a cute roll she can use for Harrison's next birthday gift, yellow with red trains and blue-green tracks.

"Maybe. We've gotten a few drinks," he admits. When she finishes the order and slides it back across her desk, he grabs the materials up and scrambles from her office.

She sighs and checks her phone the moment Vince is gone; no response yet from Dexter. She turns back to the requisition form on her monitor, typing in the information and trying not to die from boredom.

* * *

I'm so thirsty, which is ironic, considering the whole reason I ended up in this state is the damn water. My entire thigh is heavy and numb, dead weight, and I struggle toward the sound of something bubbling. It sounds tantalizingly close.

My fingers claw the ground and I push with my good leg, though now even my hip seems to be losing feeling. I hear a quiet and familiar voice, and raise my face up.

"You look like Harrison," Rita laughs. She's in one of her summer dresses, navy colored and ankle length with blue and white flowers. Her hair pools around her shoulders and her eyes are gentle, laughing. "Remember when we'd put him on the mat for tummy time? His little legs kicking. Crawling on your belly now, baby?"

"Rita," I remark stupidly. My consciousness has always denied me visits from her, even in the depths of despair. I push toward her with whatever strength I have left, toward her beautiful blue eyes. Now, she's holding out a glass of orangeade, fresh-squeezed and sweating in the humidity, water beading down the sides of the pitcher in her other hand. "Just a little closer," she says.

With a splash, I fall over the sharp bank, tumbling into the swift, cold creek. I sputter and thrash and end up face up in the water, and I'm aware that my legs are smashing into the stones that line the creek bed. I don't feel pain from their impacts, but it jerks my abdomen in a telltale manner. Rita floats above me helpfully, like a sprite or an angel. But she doesn't have wings. Her face also grows spiteful.

"You're going to drown, Dexter? Really? I said we couldn't have a pool in our yard for just this reason!" She snaps her fingers in my face. "Come on, get it together. You need to get back to our son, to Deb. Though I _really_ don't think what you're doing is healthy. You both need serious therapy. What would your father have said?"

Harry decides to show up then. I really wish one of them would help me up and out of this water, since the swift current is probably carrying me out to sea. But they both just stare down at me.

"Son of a bitch," Harry says evenly. His own blue eyes hold disgust as he looks down at me, casting his judgement. He doesn't even have the decency to look alarmed at the fact that he's just floating through the air. "I told you to protect her, Dexter, not to.. corrupt her. You're no good, she is good, she has a future, a bright future..." Now he's reciting lines from my younger days. I guess even mental disillusions run out of original material. I respond to him anyway. Might as well.

"Don't you think I know that, Harry?" I ask. "Don't you think I know I'm no good and I'm only going to drag her down? But what can I do? Deb, she... she... loves me. And I... I've _always_ loved her." I glance at Rita, and her face arranges into a thin-lipped grimace. I hope I look apologetic as I continue. "I'm no good. I can't help it. I can't..."

"..._help_." The final word is a weak little cry that doesn't even sound like my own voice. Harry finally holds out a palm and I wrap my whole arm around it and cling, then pull myself up.

* * *

Dexter ends up caught in the roots of a tree that grows close to the bank of the creek, and finds enough strength to crawl up them and onto the sandy edge of the water, which is much more shallow than it was where he fell in, a few dozen yards upstream. He propels himself a few inches up the bank, sputtering water, and ends up spread eagle, the leg of his khakis like a hideous sausage casing that barely manages to contain his severely swollen leg, the venom creeping it's way through his blood and nervous systems.

* * *

Three o'clock comes and goes, and then three thirty. Deb watches the clock, with one eye on her door. She checks her phone, and still nothing. At three quarters past, she calls the _ county sheriff's office, and confirms that Dexter checked in. The deputy who answers it assures her that he did, but never returned to bring back the files he'd borrowed of the scene.

"Son of a _bitch_!" Debra snarls. He's gone off to fucking _kill_ someone, she just knows it. She'd hoped and prayed to whomever would listen that they were past this, that he would be able to move on with his life, but he's fucking relapsed. She collects her stuff and dials the office again, asking them to send out a vehicle to the cabin. He can't have been that stupid to use it as a kill room, his real room will be somewhere else more remote.

She throws on some field boots and her windproof Miami Metro jacket as she hurries out of the building, throwing her bag and her holster into the passenger side seat and peeling out of the parking lot. She sticks one of the plug-in dash lights in her windshield and flips it on, pushing the rental's engine for all its' worth and making it to the sheriff's office in an hour twenty flat.

Deb pushes open the sheriff's door with a gust of impatience and is met with an amused radio operator. "Well, hello," she says. "Everything all right?"

"No, the fuck it _isn't_ all right. My brother is off in a cabin out in your backwards, hick ass county and I can't get a hold of him, which is not normal. Dexter Morgan. A deputy is supposed to be out there to find him. Has he?"

The flustered dispatcher mutters, "Easy, Annie Oakley," and raises the deputy on the radio. He answers, "There's a car here from your motor pool, Lieutenant, and it looks like he did his job, all those weird strings and his equipment is still at the scene. Door's unlocked. No sign of him, though. I called my hunting buddy, he's twenty minutes out and bringing his bloodhounds."

She threads frustrated fingers through her hair, tearing at her scalp. "I need directions," Deb says tersely, and scribbles them down on a sheet of scrap paper, half-running out of the lobby, then slams the rental into gear, sending gravel flying as she joins in the search for her wayward Dex.

* * *

I awake up to a dog biting my good foot, snarling and pulling at my shoe. I kick at it weakly. It's some big black and tan beast with long droopy ears and a thick tracking collar. Another just likes it comes up on us, howling it's head off, and I hear voices.

Someone pulls the dog off and gasps at my swollen leg, slapping my face as I start to fade out again. "Don't you fucking _dare_ die, Dexter!" Debra demands, and I think it's strange that now I am hallucinating living people. She looks very angry, and kind of dirty, sweat and dust on her face and her eyes hidden by the sunglasses she wears when she's out in the field. Hardly the outfit I'd want to imagine her in. I far prefer the black silk nightie and lace panties she introduced me to a few nights ago. I try to get my mind to change her into that attire, but it seems to be too focused on dying. Well, damn.

She screams for a car and I drift off again.

* * *

"Keep his head and chest elevated," the hunter in the front seat urges, shouting out of the cab. The old truck roars down the country roads and ruts at a furious pace, and Deb feels every pothole in her spine as they fly along. "It's not far to the clinic." She's less than reassured at the idea of a fucking clinic rather than an actual hospital, but the sheriff's dispatcher has already called ahead and sent a helicopter motoring into the sky to meet them and airlift them once the anti venom's been given. Luckily, the clinic keeps a large supply, since they see a lot of snake bites out in this part of the state. The deputy informs her of all of this as they load up into the truck, and she nods, only half-listening. She keeps her hand on his wrist, desperate to feel his pulse and proof that his slack body is still alive. His leg is horribly swollen all the way from toes to hip, and she's terrified he'll end up losing it. She feels so very guilty that she suspected he was out killing.

Now, he might die and she feels paralyzed with terror. She cradles his upper body in her arms and tucks her face into his neck, hot tears running down her cheeks as she rocks him.

* * *

I wake up feeling like shit, but I'm in a hospital bed and obviously still alive, so clearly that says something. I look down at my leg hesitantly, glad to see it's still there, though it feels very heavy and almost as numb and is completely bandaged. There's a balloon and a little plastic pitcher of water on the bedside table, and Deb is curled into a tiny ball in the chair beside the bed, asleep.

I watch her for a few moments, simply glad to see her face and hopeful that this isn't a fever dream. Then a sudden pain shoots down my leg, and my groan wakes her. She stretches out of her cramped slumber and seeks consciousness in my gaze, lighting up when she sees I'm awake. She impulsively flings her arms around my neck.

"Oh, thank fuck," she whispers. I raise my hands up as high as I dare, finding an IV in my right. As it shifts under my skin, it hurts, but I rub her arm anyway. After a silent moment, she sinks back down into the stiff chair, arching a kink out of her back.

"My leg?" I ask hopefully. She smiles again. "You're gonna have some hellacious scars. They split it down the side to relive the pressure from the swelling before it completely cut off circulation and died. You'll probably have nerve damage from the oxygen deprivation."

"I'm just glad I get to keep it," rubbing at my thigh as best I can. It sends a lighting shock down to my toes, then just as suddenly, it itches. I close my eyes for a moment, trying to master the pain. I lick my lips, and she pours me a glass of ice water that I savor.

"Did Harrison make it back from Orlando with Jaime all right?" I ask, and she motions to the balloon. "Compliments of your kid," she says. "They made it back two days ago, Dex." She sweeps her hand out, and I notice the vases of flowers, stuffed animals, and magazines cluttered on the shelf just behind the bed that had escaped my notice. "This one's from Angel." She grabs a little white box and fishes out a creamy tan pastry. "His mother's recipe, he said. New at the cafe." She breaks off a piece and I eat it from between her slim fingers, enjoying the sugar as it melts on my tongue. Then she goes over and locks the door before taking my face in her hands and gently pressing her lips to mine. "Don't you ever do that to me again," she says seriously. "Ever."

"I'll try to avoid snakes," I promise with a jokingly earnest face, and I'm glad that my weak condition gives her a valid excuse not to hit me. Though she does seem to contemplate it for a rather long moment.


	10. ten: Paper Hearts

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"Paper Hearts"

The weeks it takes Dexter to recover are long and slow. After a few days, he's released from the hospital, his leg still bandaged to cover the ugly line that runs from his hip to his ankle. He insists the most annoying part is the frequent pins and needles feeling from his damaged nerves, though his hobble has to be weighing on his mind. Deb knows it would be on hers.

She masters the art of slipping out of his apartment after everyone is gone and asleep, and leaving before everyone awakes and arrives. She spends more time driving the streets of Miami late at night than she ever did as a uniform. She even ends up ticketing a few drunk drivers, which looks good for her record, since her close rate is still kind of shitty.

The people of Miami still kill each other for all the usual reasons: drugs, prostitution, gang rivalries. Her younger detectives process everything as efficiently as possible; but really, compared to the last five years or so, murder is almost _boring _in her hometown_. _There are no serial killers puzzling and intriguing her, no creativity to puzzle and challenge the lab geeks. And she's sleeping with the only serial killer she knows.

She's curled in his arms one night, talking in the smallest of whispers with him when he poses the obvious question.

"Is this weird?" He motions to their entwined bodies.

"_This_-" she slides a palm across his chest to his stomach, and sliding even closer, "_this_ has been happening for what, three months now, and this is when you ask if it's weird?"

"Well," he says sheepishly, "I just wondered."

"Why?" She half sits up, looking at his face. "Does it feel weird to you now?"

"No, it feels... _normal_. Like you're finally where you belong in my life..." he trails off as she slips her hand under his boxers.

"Oh, _this_ is where I belong?" she quips as she grasps him, then gasps as he grabs her around the waist and flips them. "_Yes,_" he growls, his voice low. "It is." He nips at her chin on his way down her neck, and she fists her hands in his hair. His fingers follow the dip of her waist to the slim flare of her hips, smoothing down her long thighs. Before he takes her breast in his mouth, he says, "You never answered me. Weird?"

"For many reasons, yes." He looks up at her with hurt in his eyes. "What? I didn't say I wanted it to _stop_. I guess I like weird." Apparently satisfied, he circles her with his tongue. "I guess I _love_ weird."

* * *

It's the next Monday by the time Debra quits walking funny, and it's mostly because they haven't seen each other in two days. Her schedule has gotten busy, and Jaime took off to Boston with Quinn, so Dex has sole responsibility for Harrison whenever he's not in daycare.

She works a couple of cases, files an expense report and does the schedule and budget for next month, and is glad it was a quiet weekend.

Her whole drive home, she can all but hear her bathtub calling her name, demanding a nice soak with candles and bubbles and salts, all that girly shit. Maybe even some soft music. And there's a box of cake mix and a can of frosting in the closet from last week, probably the only unexpired things left in her little beach house. She's never been great at grocery shopping, and with as little time as she's been spending at home, it looks like a homeless person's shack. Dust bunnies and dirty laundry lurk in most of the corners...she decides that maybe she'll skip baking the cake and just go for the frosting.

It's around nine o'clock when she opens the screen door, and finds a little pink paper heart taped to the storm door. It has handwriting on it: "Hi." Debra smiles as she peels it off the glass; _fuckin' dweeb. _

She unlocks the wooden door and enters, throwing her purse and keys down on the entry table and stretching as she walks toward the bathroom. She hopes he's lurking here somewhere.

Instead, there's another heart taped to the bathroom door. "Debra" is all it says. She rolls her eyes at this one. Is this some kind of game, or just his confused attempt at romance? She remembers the hearts she's gotten in the mail these past few weeks, the date: 3-13-13. She thumps herself on the forehead; of course, that's _today's_ date.

"Dex, come out!" she calls. "This is cute and all, but seriously, you didn't have to...there better not be a fuckin' ring in the fridge, that's all I'm gonna say." Silence is all the response she gets.

She opens the bathroom door, and the mirror is fogged up, a hot bath already run, and there are a few candles flickering in the otherwise darkened room. There are paper hearts floating in the bubbles; their words are all smudged, so she crosses over and dips her fingers in the water, pulling one out.

The smile flees from her features; her heart drops to her stomach. All of the hearts say the same thing:

"Sorry."

* * *

"Audi!" Angel barks. His harried daughter whirls in mid-step and demands, "WHAT?!"

"You forget the fries for Table Two. And the entree for Four." When she starts to dart back toward him, he holds up his hand. "No, no. Take those, come back for these. I'll take Table Two's."

She mutters something under her breath in what sounds like French. He's glad his daughter is forced to be trilingual if she wants to curse him out. He grabs the warm plate and carries it out balanced on his palm, and Masuka's daughter smiles and claps her hands as he presents the fries like a grand prize. Vince laughs and his girlfriend smiles as their daughter starts crunching down her favorite food. He drops down in the booth beside her.

"Seen much of Dexter lately? He hasn't been in much since his little woodland adventure," Angel comments, and Vince shakes his head. "He comes in and does work once a week, but he's still recovering. Hell of a scar." Amelia shushes him, and he shrugs. "Believe me, she's going to hear worse with Debra Morgan around." All three laugh.

"Speaking of Deb, I hardly have seen her either. She stops in for drinks sometimes, but that's about it. What's she got, a new boyfriend or something?" Maddy shrieks when Angel steals one of her fries, and Amelia hushes her.

"As if. She spends all her time with Dexter. Neither one of them has even mumbled a word about the opposite sex since New Year's and that Hannah McKay debacle. Can't blame the guy, now that _he's_ dated a serial killer too. At least Debra got the comfort of knowing hers was dead."

"I wish we could say the same about that McKay bit- uh, _puta_." Angel saves himself just in time, and Amelia suppresses a laugh. Vince doesn't bother to. "Agreed. No woman is worth that garbage, no matter how nice her...attributes are. As far as I know, she seems to have vanished completely."

"If she's smart, she left the country. Headed down to South America or something-" He's interrupted by a clatter and the sound of breaking plates. He curses as he rises, and a mortified Auri stands over what remains of Table 6's appetizers, splattered evenly over the family, table, and the floor. "I'll be back," he promises, "I may be out of homicide, but I've still got victims," he laughs.

* * *

Deb throws the heart back into the water and charges into the bedroom, anger in her veins. "Dexter!" she yells, ready to start a fight, to demand what the hell he's sorry for. She flashes back to their conversation about their relationship being 'weird.'

She stops in her tracks. The entire bedroom is bathed in painfully bright light. The walls are covered in thick plastic, and it covers every surface, all of her furniture wrapped meticulously. There's a string running along the far wall, with paper hearts and Polaroid photos clipped along it's length with clothespins. They spell out a message that sends her heart back up to her throat.

"I've got him, bitch." The words are spaced between photos of Dexter's face. In each photo, he looks worse- his face goes from clearly unconscious, to one slice sliced, then both, the red rivulets of blood trickling down. Only in the final photo are his eyes open; they're staring straight ahead, and for once, they look like they're full of fear. She rips it off the clothesline savagely, and neat cursive spells out the rest of the message.

"Want to see him alive and not in a prison cell? One am where it all began. Be a good sister and you'll be the one to take his place." It's signed with a heart and an H.

Cold fury fills her body, straightens her spine. She questions the why, the how, but knows she has less than three hours to save him. She starts to work on her plan and frantically claws her computer out from the layers of plastic wrap on her desk. She needs to find that storage container.

* * *

I don't remember much.

I dropped Harrison off at daycare, stopped and got a sandwich at a deli. I did a little research on countries that don't extradite, because I'd gotten an idea that maybe things could be different finally, maybe I could start a few life with a woman I loved. That maybe I had a chance to walk and not run, that perhaps I could have a different kind of ending than the one I'd always accepted as inevitable.

Stupid boy, I hear Harry say. Monsters don't get happy endings. His face hovers at the edges of my consciousness.

I get back in my car after I enjoy my sandwich, and find myself regretting my tinted windows when a hand claps a rag over my mouth and nose. Before I can even put up a decent struggle, I'm out like a light... smashed like a broken light bulb, cast into darkness.

I try to put the pieces together when I wake up. I'm in an empty house, strapped to a kitchen table in the dining room. The room is dark aside from moonlight which streams in through an open set of blinds. I test my restraints, and they're tight. Inescapable. I run through a list of enemies, finding it alarmingly long, but my primary suspect walks in just as I reach the conclusion that she's who's responsible.

"Hey, Dexter," Hannah says softly, her steps measured as she approaches me. She smiles at me brilliantly. Her dark hair reminds me too much of Lila's, of Lumen's silly wig.

"Hey," I respond, a frog in my voice. I yank pointlessly at my ties. "So. Why Lumen?"

"Oh, Dexter, with your perverted sense of justice." She clucks her tongue. "You let one murderer walk off, and you send me to jail to rot? I was just... settling the balance. Unlike you, I had no evidence, so I just did what we do best." She draws her finger in a line over my cheek gently, and her other hand comes out from behind her back. I blink as she snaps a photograph with an instant camera.

"I didn't even know they still made those," I say, and look at her bloodied finger. Well, that explains why my cheeks hurt like hell. Ironic, really.

"Oh, they do. Bitch to find the film, though. It was almost harder to get the film than it was to set up your sister's house for tonight. Speaking of perversions..." her voice trails off with disgust. "Your own sister, Dexter? Honestly."

"Deb?" I ask stupidly. "What did you do to Deb?" Panic spreads through my mind, and she snaps another photo. She waves it lazily as it develops, the grey film gradually showing my fearful face and bloody cheeks.

"I redecorated," she laughs. "Now we'll learn how stupid she is. I gave her a clue or two about where we are. Will she come in guns blazing, or will she use her head? After all, I'm perfectly willing to cooperate with the police to bring you both down. Can you imagine the deal they'd cut when I hand them the most prolific serial killer in American history and his traitorous, incestuous Homicide Lieutenant sister too? She's known what you are for what, six months now?"

"And what proof do you have?" I ask, afraid of the answers.

"Oh, that's for me to know. But your pillow talk was oh so revealing, Dex. And I have an excellent memory. But I'd much rather kill you. That's the plan, in case you wondered."

"Thanks for letting me know," I drawl. I throw my gaze around the room again and something distant triggers in my memory. "I know this place," I say gently.  
"I should hope so, you lived here for quite a while. Three years, from what I could determine." Hannah almost looks bored. I should have killed her when I had the chance.

"This was the house Harry brought me home to," I muse. "The rental in Sunshine Gardens. They bought the house later, when I was seven. We had to change schools in the middle of the school year."

"Imagine my delight when I found it empty," she says. "The perfect kill room! You couldn't have chosen one better yourself. Sorry about the lack of plastic; I used it elsewhere. Had to get a rise out of your sister."

"I'm sure it had the desired effect." I imagine Deb's reaction to walking into a kill room in her own house, after all this time. She may well have fainted.

I look into her beautiful, mocking face, and vow that Hannah McKay will be the last person I ever put a knife into. Assuming she doesn't do it to me first. Which, admittedly, looks overwhelmingly likely.

* * *

Four o'clock rolls around, and one by one, the parents arrive at Harrison's daycare to pick up their children. Finally, by quarter to six, only a confused-looking Harrison Morgan remains. The secretary calls his father for twentieth time, frustrated when it goes straight to voicemail. She calls Jaime Batista, and the nanny answers again, sounding just as frantic when she reports that Dexter won't answer his phone for her either, and that she's called Debra's phone as well. Of course, even Deb is unaware that Hannah has swapped out her phone for an identical model when she broke in the night before, so their calls don't light up her phone. Jaime gives them the phone number of Harrison's grandparents in Orlando, and the secretary has a tense conversation as she balances the cranky toddler on her lap. They promise that they're on their way down, and she breathes a sigh of relief, though it will be several hours before they arrive.

* * *

Debra arrives back at the station just after ten o'clock and begins her frantic search for the details of Laura Moser's murder, trying to find the container where she died. That has to be where this all began, she reasons. The place where Dexter was born in blood, the place that Harry snatched him from his rightful brother and made him hers instead.

She grabs her sidearm and an extra clip for both her service weapon and the other gun from the lock box under her desk as she half-runs through the deserted hallways, punching the elevator buttons with more force than is really needed. She speeds through traffic, weaving around slower cars, even though she still has plenty of time before midnight. She hopes to catch Hannah unaware and put this to an end once and for all.

She parks haphazardly and slips into the shipping yard through a broken gate, her gun in both hands and a pounding in her chest that feels way too fucking familiar. It might as well be New Year's again, it's a different season and for a different reason entirely, but she's still trying to stop a murder. And she'll probably end up committing one anyway.

The yard is silent as a grave, and there's no light, no sign of other vehicles or people. She tenses as she comes up on the container, eying the door. It's unlocked. She tries the handle, yanking it up and leftward, and the door creaks open like the entrance to a tomb.

It's fucking empty. There's a few faint dark brown stains on the ground, and there's a brief flash of bile in her throat when she remembers it must be Laguerta's, but other than that, nothing.

She screams her frustration into the looming darkness, and it echoes back at her. She throws the door shut again and runs back through the yard, every step clattering off the pavement, and slips undetected back though the broken gate. She jerks her car door open and slips with the keys twice before she gets the engine back on, pressing the gas petal down with a prayer. She wills her exhausted, terror-stricken brain to _fucking think_.

_Where it all began_, she repeats in her mind like a mantra. _Where it all began_. Where all what began? Dexter's killing? Maybe he'd told Hannah about his first kill, where he took his first life, but he never shared that kind of sick shit with her because she never wanted to know. Maybe because she wasn't a fucking _serial killer. _So there's no chance she'll ever find them, if that's what Hannah meant.

If she's referring to where she and Dexter met, at least she has a chance. She knows that Dexter met Hannah in her greenhouse, and it's on this side of town anyway. Plus, Hannah would have the home court advantage on her own property. It's worth a shot.

She arrives at the deserted property within ten minutes, thanks to the empty streets. And it's just that- deserted. There's no sign of Dexter or Hannah, though she does find the paper heart factory, with pieces of paper scattered across the floor of the nursery, with markers and a large pair of rusty scissors left akimbo. It looks like a demented preschooler's project amongst the shadows of neglected, dying flowers.

Deb sinks down into the driver's seat with a wave of despair which threatens to wash over her. Her own house is obviously out, and she flies by Dexter's marina on the way to his apartment. His boat is still docked where it belongs, thankfully. His apartment is dark and undisturbed. She notices with a sigh of disgust that she needs gas, so she quickly pumps and grabs a coffee from the attached all-night convenience store. As she waits for the snail-slow attendant to ring up her purchase, the cover of a magazine catches her eye. It's a beautiful condo on the cover, under the title: "Miami Rentals Weekly".

The house that she and Dexter had grown up in was painted the same hideous shade of pink, something Doris thought was lovely but looked more like Pepto to Deb.

_The place where it all began..._

It's on the other side of the city, so she throws a five on the counter and ignores the protesting cashier as she makes tracks back to her sedan. She forgets to close the gas door in her haste.

She sends up a prayer for the first time in forever as she wills the engine to go faster, the lights to change more quickly. Every fiber of her being is screaming for her to not be too late. It's already quarter past midnight by the time she arrives on the street, and she misses the house on the first pass because the current occupants have painted it a lovely shade of sea foam and changed the shutters.

It's clearly occupied. She knocks anyway, hoping desperately and for the first time ever that she's just happened onto the scene of a home invasion, that her quarry has the rightful owners tied up in the cellar next to Dexter. Instead, an extremely irate man answers the door in his boxers, though his mood somewhat improves when she flashes her badge.

"Have you had anything unusual happen tonight?" she demands, and he rubs his eyes.

"Aside from this? No." He seems completely unaware of her frantic tone.

"Thanks. Sorry to wake you." He slams the door in her face and turns off the porch light.

* * *

"Almost one," Hannah says, staring at her nails. She's sitting on a battered chair that looks like it matches the table I'm strapped to. "I guess your sister is as stupid as I thought she was. You're really the brains of the family, aren't you? Such a pity."

"You couldn't have been much more cryptic," I challenge. "'_Where it all began?_'"

"Is that inaccurate?" she says, all sweetness in her voice. "This is where your sick little relationship began, did it not? As children, you were clearly already obsessed with each other in a decidedly unhealthy manner. If she uses her head, she'll figure it out. But she won't. I imagine she's running an interesting route though Miami instead of going to the most obvious choice."

I close my eyes and try to ignore her, trying to gather up strength in my back. I buck my hips, and the table jumps an inch with the movement. I repeat the motion, but it doesn't seem to do anything to my restraints. Hannah sighs. "Seriously, Dexter? I'm going to have to use another one of my extracts on you if you keep it up."

"If you really feel the need, dear," I say sarcastically. I know she won't knock me out, she wants the satisfaction of killing me while I'm awake. I see the knife over in the corner. At least it's a big one, a rather nice piece, ceramic with a pretty turtle shell handle. I'd very much enjoy shoving it into her solar plexus right about now. For the first time in weeks, the Dark Passenger chuckles softly on my shoulder, and I know that I truly hate her, every last thing I thought I loved about her. There's a duffel bag that presumably contains the rest of her plan and tools shoved behind it, and I ponder the contents as I fantasize about watching the light go out of Hannah's eyes. She catches my wandering gaze and crosses the room, picking up the knife and weighing it in her hand. The edge glitters in the scattered light through the blinds, and she pricks the end of her finger with the triangular point. A tiny drip of blood blossoms from the wound, and she sticks the digit in my mouth, forcing me to taste her.

She screams when I bite down hard on it, breaking the bone. What can I say...sometimes blood sets my teeth on edge. Hannah retreats to her chair to sulk and watch the clock. "That was stupid of you," she snarls as she nurses her injured finger. The broken joint forces it to hang limply, and it's on her dominant hand, too. Good. She'll lose use of it without a doctor's attention. I hope it rots off her fucking hand.

* * *

She drives. She just drives, a sinking feeling in her chest, defeated. She has no idea where Dexter is going to die. He's going to die, just like everyone else she's loved. She's the goddamn angel of death. But now it will be worse, because he is her whole life and he will be gone and goddamned Hannah McKay will be the one who took him away.

Debra really knows she's losing her mind, because suddenly she sees _Harry_. He just pops into her head like a ghost. The memory of throwing a ball with Dexter, between the three of them. They were still small, and kept losing it over the fence. Every time she threw it too far, Harry would climb over the picket fence obligingly, with a smile on his face, and Dex looked bored...

The fence. That fence didn't exist at the pink house... that fence was at the first house, the house she barely remembered... the goddamn rental.

The place where it all began.

She wishes she could slow time. She has ten minutes to make a fifteen minute drive. She takes the turns too fast and almost hits someone when she runs a red light, and she's pretty sure she runs over an opossum, but she sees the cheerful sign announcing the neighborhood just as the clock ticks past one. Dexter's SUV is parked in the driveway; a "FOR RENT" sign hangs from a post in the front yard, fenced with the picket fence. The house is dark, but that means nothing.

She kills her headlights before she turns into the drive, and almost hits his car in her haste to park. She leaves the engine running and the door open as she creeps up the driveway, gun drawn, and slinks up the steps in a crouch. She can hear his voice and Hannah's, so she knows he is still alive.

She gathers every ounce of strength in her body, directs it toward her legs, and kicks open the door.


	11. eleven: Say the Word

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)

"Say the Word"

"Time's up." Hannah gives a cruel smile and advances toward me, her eyes glittering with malice. Through the slats, I see the briefest flash of headlights, and even though it might just be a neighbor passing by, I go with my gut when it says it's Deb, and try to distract my captor.

"Oh, _must we_ do this?" I ask. I can hear an engine outside; I flex my arms and repeat my earlier trick, jerking my abdomen and making the table hop up off the floor. I throw my weight to the left with all my power, and it nearly teeters over. "I'm afraid so," she says, even as she rushes over to her duffel bag, rummaging for something to subdue me with, and that's when dear Deb decides to burst through the flimsy door of our original childhood home.

Her effort, while valiant to an extreme, isn't well timed, because the moment she sees me restrained, all Deb can focus on is me and the fact that I am still alive. Relief and love wash over her face for a precious moment; unfortunately that's the second that Hannah springs from behind the splintered door and puts the same extract-soaked cloth over Deb's face that she used on me.

The adrenaline helps her, though; she gives a sharp backward kick to the smaller woman's knees before she passes out, slamming Hannah backward into the wall and forcing her joints back at an awkward angle that makes her shriek with pain as Deb falls to the floor on top of her. She's dropped the knife in the process, thankfully. Having her in the same room and the risk of seeing her die before me throws new life into my exhausted efforts; as Hannah scrabbles to rid herself of Deb's weight, I manage to tip the table over. It crashes to the floor with a horrific noise; my bonds chafe my limbs and I can feel the incision on my leg reopen, close to my ankle. I ignore the pain and try to free myself now that gravity is aiding my attempts to escape; the blood proves a boon as it slicks one of my restraints, and I manage to slip that agonized leg free.

Hannah unburdens herself and lunges for the knife; I try to pull myself toward her with one leg, but I am still trapped on the surface of the table. I kick at my other leg with the free foot, and by pointing my toe, I manage to slip out of my shoe. This new range of motion lets me throw my legs up to fall back down on the table top, which sends me slamming back into the wall, breaking the legs of the table, weakening the hold it has on me. Hannah stares at me wildly, and thanks to Deb's attack, she didn't get to keep the rag over her face very long; she's already beginning to stir.

* * *

Harrison's not-quite grandparents relieve the exhausted daycare secretary of her burden around midnight. Bill Bennett slips her a hundred dollar bill for her troubles, and she smiles gratefully.

They call both Dexter and Debra's cell phones; they ring endlessly. Finally, they call Miamo Metro police, after pounding on both their doors and finding both homes empty. They report them both as missing persons, which of course triggers a massive effort to locate both missing Morgans. Uniforms comb the databases of calls for service and accident reports; they call local hospitals, checking for John and Jane Does with descriptions that fit their quarry. But it seems they've vanished into the night air.

Bill and Maura rent a room at a central Motel 6 and call Astor, assuring her everything's all right. Since it's a school night, she and Cody stayed in Orlando. Maura feels guilty, but it's all she can do.

* * *

The last thing Debra thinks is _Motherfucker!_ when Hannah knocks her out with the rag. She drops her gun, but manages to kick the bitch before she falls, pleased to hear her scream. Her nap is short-lived; she wakes up when she hears the splinter of breaking wood. Dexter is flopping around on the breaking table like a freshly hooked salmon; if it wasn't for the fact that they were fighting for their fucking lives, it would be hilarious to see.

Hannah whirls when she hears Deb move, distracted by Dexter's actions to free himself. It's too late; the taller woman clocks her with her fist to the temple, and she crumples to the dirty wooden floor like a sack of potatoes.

Deb takes just a second to breathe before she looks up at Dexter. His leg is bleeding and he's still on the fucking table. She hurries to untie the ropes that bind him to the edges of it, and when she gets the last restraint off, she throws her arms around him, panting. He pulls her to him and they cling to each other, desperate to comfort themselves. When Hannah groans, they reluctantly separate, turning to face her together. Deb retakes her gun from the floor, and Dex goes for the knife he'd been admiring so ardently just moments before.

When Dexter meets her eyes, something silent passes between the two of them. Their bond, which has only strengthened in these past few months, has now eclipsed them both; she recognizes that now. Somehow, she was reborn in that shipping container back on the first day of this new year, by his side.

Debra knows that this thing that is about to happen is not legal. It is not moral, it is not what Harry or anyone else would want to happen. But it's exactly what's going to happen because it's the only thing that can happen. Hannah cannot live, cannot be turned in to the authorities. She must be..._put down_.

Put down... what a euphemism for euthanasia. That had been what Laguerta screamed, at the end of last year. It's the phase Dex used when he retold what he'd done to his brother, Brian. Though she rather doubts that these final moments will be, in any sense, a humane death for her nemesis, it's a fitting phrase.

The only thing that stops her from putting a bullet between the blonde's eyes right this moment is the dark look in Dexter's eyes. She hates and fears that look; it burns like frozen fire. She'd glimpsed it only briefly before, when he killed Travis Marshall; now it settles across his entire face, and the Dexter she loves is gone. This is the predator that her father created, ruthless and efficient; she doesn't want to see this, knows it will change them both forever. But she also feels she needs to bear witness, and besides, she really hates this bitch. If anyone has ever deserved his knife, it's Hannah.

"Look away," he says woodenly. He advances on his former lover, then seems to reconsider, darting back for the rope. He binds her wrists and ankles with quick loops, hog tying her in a crude but effective manner.

"I'd leave her this way, but someone might find her before she died of dehydration," Deb mutters, nudging her with the tip of her shoe. "The evidence- do it in the bathtub or something," she says. She thinks back to her own tub, now filled with apologetic paper hearts and cold water, the nightmare she'd had where she was in a bathtub of her own blood. Rita's ghostly white body in the garden tub of vivid crimson. She finds it hard to muster any sympathy for Hannah. Dexter shrugs in response and throws her over his shoulder, carrying his unconscious burden roughly and with his limp, down the hallway they'd chased one another down as children.

The bathroom has been remodeled since they lived here in the early 80's; the tub is different from the one she vaguely remembers as an olive green monstrosity. He dumps her off, face-up in the wide basin, and shuffles past Deb to retrieve the knife from the dining room.

By the time he comes back, she's sitting on the closed toilet seat, staring at Hannah. Her face looks younger, softer somehow, now that she's not awake. She looks like a normal woman. It unsettles her for a moment, until Dexter turns on the water, and Hannah reawakens like a coiling cobra. Then she remembers just how badly this woman needs to die.

"You two," she spits, hatred glowing like embers in her cool green eyes. "The killer and his perfect accomplice. Think you're something special, don't you? You're just like me and Wayne Randall. And you'll end up the same way, sick fucks."

"Enough," Dexter warns, and his tone is cold enough to make fucking snowballs in hell, but she goes on anyway. Deb supposes she has nothing left to lose.

"Killing people... I could understand that, Dexter. But fucking your _sister_? I'm ashamed I ever felt anything for you," she snarls. Dex throws his hands up in the air, which is an interesting motion, since he has a very large knife in one of them.

"You _do_ know she's my foster sister, don't you?" He rolls his eyes and Deb would laugh, but the tension in the air is too thick. It's borderline ridiculous.

"It doesn't matter. She's your sister in every way that matters. Raised together, same memories, same history. That's all anyone will ever see when they hear your story. So enjoy living with that for the rest of your lives. I would have done you both a favor." With this, she grows quiet.

The shower continues to run, soaking Hannah and Dexter. The tub slowly begins to fill. He makes no move to kill her; Deb sits and watches. When the water reaches her shoulders, dread begins to fill her eyes, and Deb rises abruptly and crosses the room, putting a hand on Dexter's forearm and gently pushing him away. They share a long, hard look; it seems almost like she's seeking acceptance, or permission. Finally, he shrugs and takes a few steps back, shoulders hunched. Hannah sees something in Debra's eyes, something dark and nameless, and breaks her silence, suddenly screaming "_NO_!"

Debra ignores her, shoving her shoulders and upper body beneath the water. Now she's drenched as well as the shower continues to run, and Dexter stands by, watching and doing nothing, staring them down and absorbing everything, childlike, a witness once more to murder. Hannah thrashes; her eyes bulge open and her mouth moves, sending roiling bubbles up as the water washes over the edges of the tub. Her darkly dyed hair slides through the water, tangling around Deb's fingers like seaweed. She screams at her, the words indistinct and vengeful, and looks like a bizarre, enraged mermaid. The struggle seems to last forever; in reality, it only takes about three minutes. Finally, her eyes roll back in her head, and her movements stop.

Debra pulls her hands from the sickeningly still body like they've been burned, stumbling back and seemingly shocked by what she's done. Dexter, ever more practical, scoops Hannah from the tub and uses the knife to slice off the ropes.

"Ligature marks," he mumbles. He pulls each of her limbs straight, then heaves the burden over his shoulder and calls out to Deb. "Come on. We'll throw her off the boat, it will look like she tried for Cuba and drowned."

"Won't the autopsy find fresh water in her lungs?" she asks shakily, brushing off her pants and following him through the living room and out the front door. She's gathered up Hannah's bag and rifles though it, outraged to find her phone admit the various supplies.

"No, pathologically, there's no difference. And water doesn't enter the lungs when you drown." He fumbles for his keys and unlocks his vehicle with a soft 'beep'. "Grab that tarp?" he asks, and Deb seizes it, spreading it across the cargo area. Dex sets down Hannah's body and pulls the blue plastic over her. "Kind of brilliant, really. Now the feds get their man- pardon the phrase- and get to close their case. Maybe Dad picked the wrong protege."

"Shut up," she answers mirthlessly. It seems her conscience is finally kicking in.

* * *

I drive slowly and carefully to my marina, making sure I keep to the side streets, avoid speeding, and stop at every stop sign. Though Miami's streets are empty, the last thing I need is to be pulled over. Deb calls me and we speak on the phone as she follows behind me in her car. We talk logistics and say nothing about the contents of my cargo area.

Suddenly, Debra blurts out, "Who has Harrison?"

I almost slam on the brakes. "Oh, God." I'm so used to Jaime picking him up and caring for him that her trip to Boston has completely slipped my mind, being as it was more focused most recently on staying alive. Though my first instinct is to turn the car around and head for the daycare, I continue onward. "Now we've got to give ourselves an explanation," I say eventually. "They'll have called the Bennetts; they're second on the emergency contact list, after you. But we need to get out to the water now, as soon as we can." I edge my foot down a tiny bit harder on the pedal, and skirt the speed limit by five miles an hour. We pull down the gravel-laid driveway less than twenty minutes later, and like always, the parking lot is empty. She pulls her vehicle in beside mine, and then Deb helps me carry Hannah, wrapped in the tarp, down to the Slice of Life. I quickly stuff her in the live well.

I ram the engine to third gear once we are out of the harbor, and the boat rises up on plane, cutting though the gently waving water. There's not much light out tonight, the moon a tiny sliver accompanied by a few scattered stars. When we're close to ten miles out, I kill the engine and we heave Hannah overboard. It feels strange to dump her body in the same way I discarded her father's; maybe that's some strange form of justice. Then I grab my phone and throw it out into the water, and motion for Deb to do the same.

"The fuck?" she asks, shaking her head.

"Our alibi. I'll buy you a new one," I answer. She stares at me, so I shrug and go back to the motor, yanking off the cover and poking at the engine. I find the oil filter, and unscrew it a few turns. Black motor oil starts to pour out, leaving a metallic streak in our wake and coating the engine in grime. I replace the cover and crank up the engine once more. She watches me work, then I hear the plunk of her phone hitting the water.

It takes another seven miles, but eventually the outboard gives up, groaning to a halt. We're effectively dead in the water, and it's about three o'clock in the morning.

I dig around in my glove box for an old distress beacon, and hook it up to my cigarette lighter. It starts sending out blinding flashes every thirty seconds, and she shields her eyes.

"So what's the story?" Deb asks lazily as we float. The boat rocks on the current, the water sloshing against the sides. I'm stretched out on the opposite set of benches, both of us near the bow.

"The engine quit, I leaned over too far and fell in, losing my phone, which happened to be in my pocket. You, the ever-impulsive, brave lass that you are, dove in after me and also lost your phone, so we've been adrift since early this evening."

She lets the story rattle around her head for a few seconds, then her detective's mind tears it to ribbons.

"A fine tale, aside from the fact that I didn't even leave the fucking station until eight."

"Did anyone see you leave?"

She pauses, seemingly struggling to remember. I don't blame her- it seems like yesterday happened weeks ago. "I didn't see anyone on the way out. The cameras would have caught me, though."

"I'll delete the files as soon as we get back," I answer. I blow out a breath, then reach across the narrow space between us, my fingers trailing down her arm and curling around hers. "Look, I've been thinking a lot about this. How tired I am of all of this." I motion to the air around us with my free hand.

"The ocean?" she asks, playing dumb. I smile and ignore her comment, continuing. "The money from my aunt gives us a lot of options. I've been looking overseas. I don't want to run if I don't have to, Deb." I open my palm and grip hers within it, turning my face so that I'm looking into her eyes. I can just make out her features, despite the darkness. "But whatever new life I make- I want you to be in it with me." She nods, her hair tossing with the movement.

"Where are we talking about, then? South America?"

"Most European countries won't extradite if the defendant is facing the death penalty," I answer. "Though, to be fair, no one's tried to extradite someone like me. It will always be a possibility, as long as I'm alive. But if we leave now, before any heat comes our way, we can make a clean break, a fresh start." I smooth my thumb over hers. "And if our identifying files happen to get corrupted just after we leave...well, we might even avoid it _ever_ happening."

"What would we even do in another country?" she asks logically. Being a cop is so ingrained in her psyche that I can believe she can't imagine doing anything else.

"You could go private sector," I reply. "Become a private investigator, liaison with local police. As for me, I've thought about writing."

"Writing?" she asks skeptically. "You? You're not exactly the Bard." She rises up, dropping my hand as she crosses the bow, then sits down beside me, cross-legged and resting her head on my thigh as she looks over at me. I smile in response. "I think I could be quite descriptive in true crime. I read Sal Price's stuff and all I could think was 'I could have phrased that better.' And it could let us lay fairly low for a while, with nice sums coming in when the books sell." I've begun one already, during my extensive recuperation; a tell-all about the Jordan Chase case. It's nearly seventy thousand words and climbing every time I sit down at the keyboard. "America loves stories that bleed, and behind the scenes looks at forensics. It's the _CSI _effect."

"God, that fucking show," Deb groans. "Thanks to that kind of crap, juries think that every case fits together like a perfect jigsaw puzzle. If only it were all that neat and tidy." She pauses. "You really think this could work out? I don't even have a passport."

"That's the nice part about walking," I answer. "We have time to get everything arranged, to say goodbyes and put things together in neat little rows. We can apply for visas and passports, sell what we need to, decide where to go."

"But leave Miami? Astor and Cody?" I hear the hesitation in her voice, and understand it. After all, it's the city we've both lived in all of our lives, the place of our birth. We both love it, the flavors, the people, the heat. It's a lot to leave behind. And yet...

"Yes," I sigh heavily. "We have to, to have a chance, a change. They're happier with their grandparents, and I can fly them to wherever we are to visit Harrison. Deb, I want a life where I can kiss you in public, without worrying who will see and judge. I want to share a bed with you every night and not have you sneak away like a thief every morning." I reach down and trace her jaw with my thumb. "Though you are quite skilled at sneaking."

"I'm skilled at other things," she quips. "It would be nice to not have to hide. People would just assume we had the same name because we were...you know. Married, or whatever." She motions between us. "It's not like there's any family resemblance."

I swing my legs down beside her and sink down off the cushion, letting my arm go around her shoulders and pulling her against my side. "No, never has been. You've always been so damn _skinny_."

"Athletic," she challenges. She abruptly swings her body in my embrace, settling over my legs on her knees, raised up a head higher than me and peering down at my face in the blue-black darkness. Her face is colored in shades of indigo. She moves forward and rests her weight on my lap. "I've never heard you complain, anyway." She grinds her hips to accent her point.

"Nor will I," I concur, tilting up to kiss her elegant neck. She sighs and cranes her face up toward the overcast sky, granting me access. "You've been mine through thick and thin." My hands find her hips and direct her movements more purposefully. She moans, low and ragged, as the friction builds sweetly.

"We need to get wet," I realize aloud, suddenly. This time, her groan is of frustration. "Too late," she says; I give a small grin to acknowledge her bad joke. "We have to jump in the fucking ocean? Seriously?"

"It gives us an excuse to take our clothes off," I point out reasonably.

"Saved by logic again, Dexter Morgan," she comments, then heads for the stern. I follow behind her.

* * *

The coast guard captain gets a call from local police regarding a missing persons and a watercraft at 2:30am; it's been relayed from their local station. Since the missing persons are some of Miami Metro's finest, their homicide lieutenant and her lab geek brother, they go on top priority. The captain eases the throttle open on his cutter and it glides smoothly through the Biscayne bay. He sends two lower ranking seamen out with binoculars to scan the horizons for any signs of distressed ships, and they comb the area, heading farther and farther out to sea before they spot the beacon. By that point, the dawn has begun to creep across the Florida sky, coloring the purple sunrise with streaks of pink and orange.

They sight the vessel and begin their approach as quickly as possible, slicing through the waves as the tide works against them, the wind whipping up ever-higher peaks across their bow. Within half an hour, they are close enough for him to slip down to first gear, the engine sputtering as they reach shouting distance. They hail the stranded fishing boat, and he confirms that it matches the identification number he'd been given with the initial report.

The occupants rise from the deck when they hear his crew's shouts, leaping up with cheerful waves and big smiles at being rescued. The captain glances down at his bearings, calling over the radio that they've been found, and reflecting inwardly that it's these kind of things that lead him to join the Coast Guard in the first place- the happy endings.

* * *

After Dexter drops anchor on the Slice of Life, the Coast Guard crew hustles them across the tied bows and onto their cutter, abandoning the other ship. The captain assures Dexter that he's accurately recorded the GPS coordinates of his stranded vessel so that Dex can have a barge come out and tow the disabled boat back to shore. When he relates the source of the problem, the captain makes a flippant remark about the brand of outboard, and they launch into an animated discussion on the cost of repairing it versus simply replacing it with a higher output model. Debra's too exhausted to care much about the topic, so she stretches out across one of the sets of seats that flank the ships' wheelhouse, glad to be in a cabin and out of the wind. Her thighs ache and she really needs a shower, tired of the salt and sweat on her skin, and she thinks longingly of her bathtub once again, though she also dreads the massive cleanup she faces at her bungalow. She decides to borrow Harrison's tub again.

The first thing Dex had done as soon as the Coast Guard arrived was call off the search for them, using the satellite phone to dial Bill and Maura and assure them that it had all been an accident, desperate to hear that his son was all right and relieved that he'd been in good hands all afternoon and evening. Though he'd promised to pick up his son the moment they reached dry land, and insisted he'd pay for an extra day at the hotel for them to rest before the long trip home to Orlando, Mauara said he must be exhausted from his ordeal, and promised to care for Harrison until Dexter was ready to pick him up. By the time they're back at the marina, no one even questions it when he takes Deb home with him, and she disappears to the other side of the apartment to wash off the stress and saltwater the moment he unlocks the front door.

It's nearly eight in the morning by the time he drops into his bed like a stone, waking only when she slides into the sheets to his right and hooks her body toward his. He opens his eyes, blinks back the light, and pulls her deeper into his embrace, nodding back off into a blissfully dreamless sleep.


	12. twelve: Arcadia

**Auld Lang Syne**  
by Bangfangs  
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: rinaway)

"Arcadia"

The bags I pack aren't thrown together in haste; I'm not doing a mad dash out the door, fleeing for my life. No, I have time to deliberate, to plan; over some objects, I linger, and others enter and exit my duffel bags several times.

I suspect that Deb's packing will be last-minute and frantic; after all, I've known her my entire life, and have gone on more trips with her than I can count. She'll deny the fact that we're leaving our little slice of Florida for as long as possible.

My aunt's money has come through; it's strange to see so many digits on my bank account. I've put my apartment on the market, with quite a bit of interest, sold off excess objects over a few weekends of garage sales. I've got a buyer for my car, Jaime, and a buyer for the _Slice of Life_ as well- Angel. The idea of leaving Miami is still surreal, but slowly, it's becoming reality.

I tell the crew of Miami Metro about my inheritance gradually, and they accept it. After all, who wouldn't retire early and move abroad if they had gotten such a large windfall? If anyone questions why Debra has also decided to leave the station, word of it hasn't gotten back to me- though she's told them the truth: Harrison and I are the only ones she has left, and she'll follow us. Her only stipulation for our destination has been that it has to be warm and primarily English-speaking. After all, she's always been terrible with languages.

With well over half of the population speaking English, Cyprus is sub-tropical, beautiful, and has no extradition regulations with the United States. It has definite possibilities.

* * *

Deb's half-naked and tearing through her closet, making three heaping piles- keep, donate, toss- when she hears the knock at the door. She pulls on a pair of shorts from the 'keep' pile and throws her hair up in a messy bun as she walks barefoot across the hardwood floors of her cottage, peeking out the peephole and spotting Joey Quinn in front of her door.

She opens the door as his knuckles rap on the wood for the sixth time. "Uh- hey," he greets her, startled. She smiles at him in response. "Hey, Joey. Come in." She moves back and he strides into her house. He counts it as his own proper upbringing that he doesn't stare _too_ long at the bottom of her ass that hangs out of her shorts as she leads him to the kitchen, offering him a drink. He still gives it a glance, sure, but he's not in love with Debra Morgan anymore, and that's kind of the point of this visit.

She hands him a can of Coke and pops the tab on her own as she perches on a stool beside him at the counter. "So, what brings you to my neighborhood?" She takes a sip and she just looks so... _relaxed_ that it takes Joey a minute to respond.

"I still can't believe you're fuckin' resigning. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd get the fuck out of here if I could afford to too, but we don't all have suddenly wealthy brothers..."

"Hey," she protests, and she bites her bottom lip in a way that he remembers too well. It gives him pause. "Dex is my family, so's Harrison. I'm not gonna turn into Laguerta, Quinn. That's not what I want from my life, may she rest in peace and all that."

"Still, why are you guys going to _leave? _You spent your whole lives here."

"Exactly. We both want to see the rest of the world, Dexter wants to expose Harrison to more cultures and let him grow up with a second language. It makes sense," she says easily, and the lightness in her movements and speech makes it easy to see why she's so ready to go. Even if it does mean that Miami Metro is losing two of their best resources.

"I guess," he responds glumly. He finishes the can with a gulp and sets it down in front of him, shifting his weight on the stool and changing his approach. "Anyway, I'm not here about that, though it does fuckin' suck to lose you, Morgan. I... I didn't want you to hear it from someone else first, but I'm asking Jaime to marry me."

Her whole face brightens and she throws herself forward, her arms going around his shoulders. He pats her back hesitatingly as she says "That's great, Quinn! I hope she fuckin' says yes. Have you got a ring yet? Please told me you already asked Angel, you know how he is."

"Yeah, he was my first stop this morning, actually." And before he knows it, somehow Joseph Quinn finds himself in an excited conversation with the last girl he proposed to about how to successfully propose to his new intended. It's all rather strange, but then, had he really expected anything less?

* * *

When Deb and I resign on the same day, the whole department is pretty gobsmacked. The Captain frantically scrambles to hire a new LT, and Masuka calls around until he finds two of his former students to come aboard at what they'd been paying me. It's not a bad trade-off, really.

"I can't believe you are bailing on me, dude," Vince says sourly as I put mementos in a small cardboard box, emptying my office. I leave the blood spatter photographs on the wall; they make a nice decoration, and they're too large to bring with me, anyway.

I shrug in response. "You know you can always send me anything that's really driving you crazy. I won't even charge for a consult."

"You're a generous soul," he answers, rolling his eyes with a smirk. I know that he'll forgive me. "At least you could have left your sister and your kid. Who else around here has someone young enough to hang out with my daughter? Nobody, that's who."

"Miller has a couple of kids, daughters, I think," I inform him, referring to one of the newer female detectives down in the bullpen, and he looks interested. "Besides, I have to talk to somebody down there nowadays. Homicide's a fucking ghost town lately, they're gonna have to give a dozen unis shields at this rate just to fill the desks."

As I pick up the file box of nicknacks, Vince fixes me with a rueful look. "So come on, man, fess up, you're _hitting that_."

My face is perfectly blank and reasonably confused, I'm pretty sure of it. "Huh?" I answer.

"That's why you're taking her with you. You're finally giving it to her, sister, my ass."

"_Deb?_" I say incredulously. "Vince, I know you're a sick puppy..."

"No immediate denial, that's all the confirmation I need, Morgan. Can't lie and say I blame you. Besides, she's not your _real_ sister."

I put down the box and stick out my palm stoically, choosing the high ground and avoidance of the topic. He shakes my hand with a genuine smile. "Don't fall apart on me, Dex, I'll be at the going-away shindig, I'll see you there. You and the other Morgan. Kinda nice, she won't even have to change her name."

I roll my eyes as I carry the box out through the doorway. While that would be true, I have no intention of making things any more complicated than they are, wherever we go. Instead of heading back to the apartment, I head for the courthouse right down the road and file for a petition to restore my birth name, as well as a form for Harrison. I'm done being a Morgan, Deb can keep the name.

And if, down the road, we do go there, at least her initials won't have to change...and they certainly wouldn't be DQ.

* * *

Debra picks the Sunday before their flight and designates it as the grave site day. Systematically, they drive between the cemeteries of Miami, laying flowers and paying respects to the many they've lost through the years. They go to Harry and Doris' matched headstones, their death dates a decade apart; they visit Camilla and LaGuerta, who, strangely enough, ended up in the same row. Then it's a trip down two interstates to visit Rita; Deb almost wants to stay in the car, even more uncomfortable with the thought of Dexter's late wife looking down on them in horror as she was at the memory of LaGuerta's face.

"Whatever happened to Brian?" she asks, during the walk back to her car. They'd spent ten minutes in front of Rita's gravestone. Dexter had knelt before it and laid down a bouquet of pink roses, smoothing grass clippings off the top curve of the monument.

"Since his body wasn't claimed by family, it became property of the state of Florida and was interred in a pauper's grave," he answers easily. "They're left unmarked in the city cemeteries, but the numbering and general location guides are kept on file somewhere."

She apologizes without knowing why. Brian Moser was a monster, evil in ways that Dexter could never be, and would have joyfully slit her throat, but he was also the only brother Dex had in this world. And at her words, he reaches out and smooths his thumb over her knuckles, catching her fingers in his palm. "Don't be sorry," he says. "It doesn't matter...it's more dignified than the bottom of the ocean, and that's where he belonged." She leans into his shoulder with her own, and he slows his pace to match hers.

It takes them twice as long to get back to the car as it had taken to get to the grave site.

* * *

They stop for lunch at one of their old standbys, a little run down place close to their destination on the west side of town. Dexter gulps down a Cuban roasted pork sandwich in record time, and she picks at her chicken fried steak.

"Everything okay?" he asks, motioning to her hardly-touched lunch.

"Yeah," she sighs unconvincingly. "It's just crazy- this might be the last time we're ever in this place. We've come here since we were kids."

"True," he says, chewing thoughtfully. "But we'll make a new life and find new favorite places in Cyprus."

"Cyprus," she laughs sharply. "Right, the country I wasn't even aware _was _a country until you pointed it out online." A french fry finds it's way past her lips, and she notices that she has his rapt attention. She purposely brings the next one up to her mouth a little slower, pausing to swirl it in the puddle of jerk sauce left on his empty plate. She makes sure that it leaves a smear of sauce on her lower lip, and he impulsively reaches across the table, dragging his thumb across the stain and leaving his eyes lingering on her lip.

After a moment, he sits back and lets out a long-held breath a little raggedly, and she counts it as a victory.

* * *

Jaime is glad she's so close to graduating, since Dexter's abrupt intercontinental move will mean a vast loss of income for her. She's glad all over that Angel has ridden her hard about saving, and that she's got a small nest egg tucked away in a checking account she rarely touches.

Angel offers her a hostess job at his restaurant, and Joey laughs when she tells him, as they lay out at the beach. "If you wanna help him out, then do it, doll," he says casually. "But if it's a money thing- you can come live with me. Or I'll come to your place." He shrugs. "Doesn't matter to me."

"Are you going to take over my closets and leave dirty socks everywhere?" she asks, admiring her diamond solitaire in the sunlight.

"Probably." He pulls out a tube of aloe from the cooler, squirts some on his hands, and starts to smooth it down her calves, working his way up to her knees. The gel feels amazing on her skin, and she shifts closer to give him better access. She drops her sunglasses down her nose and catches his attention.

"I guess it would be a good practice run for the future. But you're coming to my apartment- I hate your neighborhood."

Quinn drops the aloe in the sand and kisses her deeply, and she forgets about it almost immediately as her skin heats up for an entirely different reason.

* * *

Dexter unlocks the door to his apartment quicker than he thinks he's ever done before. Deb is right behind him, half-pushing him through the doorway and slamming it behind them. His hands find her hips and he catches her face in a crushing kiss, her hands coming up to tug at his scalp. He pushes her back roughly against the front door, his fingers creeping along her waistband until he finds the button of her jeans, undoing them quickly. He pulls down the zipper and she squirms out of her shirt. When they break away from their kiss, he glances at the kitchen clock- they've got two hours before Harrison's daycare lets out. Deb dives for the buttons of his shirt.

"Rip them," he growls. "I'm not bringing this one." She grabs one edge of the shirt and tugs, and the white plastic buttons pop off the hem, scattering across the apartment and falling into a dozen crevices. She gives a wanton grin and winds her hands around his neck, relishing the feel of his skin on hers. His hands cross her shoulder blades and flick open her bra, letting it side down her arms and fall to the floor. She backs up to the couch, bringing him along with her, and he tugs his belt open and shimmies out of his pants and boxers.

As she falls back on the cushions, he nips at her neck and one of his hands comes up behind her head, cradling it tenderly. She groans as his other hand goes between her legs and finds her beyond ready. He sinks down into her, savoring the sensations that threaten to overwhelm him. Her body feels like home, and she throws her legs up and crosses her ankles up in the air over his thighs as he sets a furious rhythm that leaves them both breathless and desperate.

When it's over, he shifts away only far enough to drop to the back of the couch, pulling her body close to his and draping a possessive arm over her hip, his fingers drumming at the taut, flat expanse of her abs. Their feet and ankles dangle comically over the edge of the couch, and Deb remembers that they hadn't even bothered to put a bad movie on TV to muffle the noise. Oh well, the neighbors won't be their neighbors soon enough.

* * *

The party is at Angel's; there's a big Latin swing band on the stage, and balloons drift through the sticky Miami air in the darkness. It's a much smaller crowd than New Years, but the atmosphere is similar. Basically anyone who knew Dexter or Debra in any capacity seems to have turned out for the big goodbye, and Angel has orchestrated a grand send off for them both.

Bill and Maura have brought down Cody and Astor so that they can spend some time with Harrison, and they were all too glad to stay at the hotel and chaperone, so that frees up Jaime to attend with Quinn. Deb gives a sunny, genuine smile and demands to examine her ring, and deep down, she's glad when she notices it's nothing like the one she rejected years earlier from the same suitor.

Vince and Dexter find a spot away from the tables where the noise level is slightly lower, and trade their usual brittle jokes and banter. "So now you're gonna have to get some Cyprus strange, huh?" Masuka intones, and his investigator's eye focuses on the older man's face, studying it for any flicker that would reveal he has no such intentions. He smiles to himself when Dexter's gaze subconsciously shifts to sweep the crowd, settling on Debra, before he answers, a beat later: "I guess, I hadn't really thought about it." Vince makes a point of physically turning and focusing in on Deb, who's busy taking shots with Angel and Quinn. When her former partner reaches out to steady her, grasping her shoulder, Dexter quickly excuses himself and parts the crowd until he's beside her again.

It's all the answer Masuka needs. There's always been something about the Morgans.

His phone buzzes in his chinos, breaking his train of thought. "Hey, sweetie!" he says brightly, and his daughter Maddy squeals into the receiver on the other end.

* * *

For once, Deb and I have both been drinking. Our plane tickets are purchased, our belongings packed and a freighter carton stuffed with the larger items we couldn't leave behind. This party is our final hurrah in our native land, so I drink and she drinks and we spend time with the people we like, and a few we don't, just because it's polite to do so. Matthews happens to be on that list. He's awkwardly poised by the bar with a coconut shell in his hand, a pink umbrella poised at it's rim, and two of the newer Homicide detectives are talking his ear off, from the look of it. I'm glad that it keeps him distracted. Matthews asks too many questions.

After the first couple of beers, I leave Masuka and end up hovering near her side, compelled to stay beside her. Logically, I remember that Quinn is happily in love with Jaime, living with her and engaged, but a jealous part of my lizard brain won't let that matter.

Joey Quinn is wasted, which is predictable. He hasn't gotten handsy, but he notices when I step between he and Deb as she wobbles on her feet. Her eyes focus on me, pulled away from her conversation with Quinn, and she grins.

"Dexter!" she chirps, and leans into my chest. She doesn't do anything but lay her head on my collarbone, and I fight the urge to rest my palm on her back. I look past her and the oddest look is in Quinn's eyes; like puzzle pieces falling into place. After a moment, he looks away and sets off in search of someone else to drink with, probably Jaime. Angel has been oblivious to the entire moment, barking out orders to his bar backs and the somewhat harried bartenders.

"I'm tired, Dexter," she says in a low tone, and pushes on my hips to steady herself, raising her eyes to look into mine.

"Do you want to go?" I ask, already reaching for my phone to call a taxi. She nods, and adds, "But we gotta say goodbye to Angel and everybody and say thank you and all that shit."

We make a slow tour of the party as it begins to wind down, expressing our gratitude, giving hugs and handshakes and exchanging email addresses and promises to keep up on Facebook. Finally, we find the exit, and Angel's waiting. He pulls each of us in for a huge bear hug, and he looks down at us.

"Look at the two of you," he says. He swipes at his cheek. "_Conyo_, this fucking smoke, it's making my eyes tear up. Miami won't be the same without the Morgans." He pulls Deb in for another hug. "For one thing, my tequila bill is about to be cut in half," he jokes, and she laughs, punching his shoulder. He turns to me.

"Dex." He gives me a pump of his fist, strong and lingering. "You take care of her in Cyprus, keep her away from those Greek guys and their felafel." He shrugs as I smile back. "Hey, what do I know about it? I had Auri Google it."

"I'll keep her safe," I promise honestly. The yellow cab pulls smoothly into the front of the parking lot, and we say our last farewells.

If Angel ever noticed the kiss Deb plants on me the moment the taxi door closes, he's too polite to mention it in the emails we exchange over the coming years.

* * *

The End


	13. epilogue- author's notes

Epilogue  
_  
Ten years later..._

New Year's Eve isn't really the same in Cyprus, so they stay in and have a small dinner, a gathering of friends, admirers, and fellow ex patriots.

There's a small community in this Mediterranean paradise that have traded United States or British soil for white beaches, blue water, and a less than willing international legal system. Their crimes vary; they never speak of them, and Debra remains the only one who knows the truth that lurks behind Dexter's wildly popular novels. As for Deb, she wears a beautiful aquamarine ring on her left hand, tucked behind a thin gold band that she tells people was her mother's. She's still Debra Morgan and he's Dexter Moser and they came here together with Dexter's now teenaged son, Harrison, a decade ago, and a couple of years later, Debra had a baby girl named Marguerite and left the father's name blank on the birth certificate.

Dexter works with a publishing company based in London, where he sends manuscripts, and a few months later, he gets a copy in the mail for his shelf, and the bank account grows by a few thousand more dollars. They bought a little villa by the sea with cash when they first arrived, and they keep everything else paid for out of pocket as well, even Harrison's tuition at the local college. No one from their days at Miami Metro has come sniffing around in years, mostly because they've all got their own lives. Aside from a spring break visit from a giggling Auri and her friends, and the annual Christmas visit from Cody, Astor, and their eventual partners, life is pretty quiet for the Moser-Morgan household.

On this New Year's Eve, Marguerite's in bed by ten, Harrison's out with some friends, and Dexter and Debra are knocking back beers on their wicker couch. There's an old black and white movie, something with Chaplin with blocky Greek subtitles across the bottom of the screen, flashing on the television. Her head falls to his shoulder, and his hand seeks out hers beneath the blanket that covers them both, finding it near her knee and slipping his fingers between hers. His other hand finds the remote and he flips until he finds an English station on the satellite, just before midnight. She nestles closer to him as they watch the live feed of the ball drop; a decade before, everything had fallen, shattered, on this night.

But luckily, they'd found a way to pick up the pieces and create something even stronger, even better, with the remnants.

As the clock strikes midnight, he leans down into her kiss, amazed as ever that merely her touch can empty his mind and send fire down his spine. As he nudges her backward and carefully rests his weight on her lean frame, she smiles up at him.

On the television screen, couples are swirling in the snow, embracing theatrically. The crowd sings drunkenly along with the band, most of them forgetting the words, but the tune is familiar: "Auld Lang Syne."

It's an old Scottish poem, set to music, all about the importance of times long past. Were it not for their bond, created in childhood, nurtured through personal trials and finally set aflame by tragedy, they might have both lost themselves on that night, to the soundtrack of that old hymn.

Dexter Moser only kills on the page, now; after a series of little revelations that ended up being a revolution, a resolution that brought this woman into his arms. And none of these events would have come to transpire without that connection to _her, _his...well, everything. His Deb.

* * *

Author's Notes

Thanks for sticking with me through this story to the end, I really appreciate all your positive comments. I had this story completely plotted out on the first day I came up with the idea, on roughly twelve notebook pages, so it was hard to read your reviews with suggestions and not follow them, but to come to my resolution, I had to stick with those plot lines.

I had originally shown much more of the Joey/Jaime relationship, but that is one thing I scaled down in response to your comments. I didn't know how many people really hate Quinn until I wrote this! And Hannah, well, I gave her the death she was terrified of in canon. If she was a little too stock 'bad guy', I apologize... it's hard for me to hide my own hatred for her character.

I used the Florence and Machine album 'Ceremonials' as a big influence on this story... each track on the album had an influence on the tone of the matching chapter, in same order they appear on the LP. They're an awesome band, and they just fit Dexter so well. Each chapter also has some tiny homage to some of the other television shows I love, and is named after one of their episodes.

I tried to work in elements from previous seasons, and in some cases, those elements were shoved in with a crowbar rather than a gentle reminder...Lumen comes to mind. I actually love Lumen, but I couldn't bring her back into Dexter's life in any other way. I do feel that Dexter would have been dopey enough to tell Hannah about her, if only because he was so depressed when Lumen left him, and afraid Hannah would do the same.

This story will be an AU fic come June, and while I hope Debster goes canon, I really wanted to give them a happy ending, one they'll probably not get on the show. I love Dexter and I really think, despite his crimes, that he deserves redemption, and I'm an unapologetic Debra lover.

I'll still be writing for Dexter and Debra, no matter what happens on the show, so watch for smaller one-shots in the months to come.

And again, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your kind words mean more to me as a writer than I can ever express.


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